F 
..Be 



State Republican Campaign Book 



-AND- 



The Popular "Old Politician's" Letters. 



A True Analysis of Missouri Democratic Government 
Facts and Figures Based on Official Records 



Wherein the State Constitution Has Been Violated 
By Whom, the Motive and the Consequences 



You Say: "SHOW ME?" 






"WE WILL!" 



i . Nesbitistn and Tammany 
ism. 


1. Misapplication of the State 
School Fund. 


2. Ballot Box Stuffing: and Non- 
contestible Elections. 


a. Misappropriation of the State 
Interest and Revenue Funds. 


3. Discredited Democracy Saved 

by Municipal Machines. 

4. Famous and Infamous Card- 

well Case. 


3. Indirect or Unlimited Tax- 

ation. 

4. State Treasury Used as a 

Lobby Fund. 



What Will We Do About It? 

This Book Will Show You II 



Copyrighted by E. C. Brokmeyer, author of the State Republican Campaign 
Book of rgoo, Editor. 



State Republican Campaign Book 



-AND- 



The Popular "Old Politician's" Letters. 



A True Analysis of Missouri Democratic Government 
Facts and Figures Based on Official Records 



Wherein the State Constitution Has Been Violated 
By Whom, the Motive and the Consequences 



You Say: "SHOW ME?" 






"WE WILL!" 



i. Nesbitism and Tammany- 


1. Misapplication of the State 


ism. 


School Fund. 


2. Ballot Box Stuffing: and Non- 


a. Misappropriation of the State 


contestable Elections. 


Interest and Revenue Funds. 


3. Discredited Democracy Saved 


3. Indirect or Unlimited Tax- 


by Municipal Machines. 


ation. 


4. Famous and Infamous Card- 


4. State Treasury Used as a 


well Case. 


Lobby Fund. 



What Will We Do About It? 

This Book Will Show You!! 

Copyrighted by E. C. Brokmeyer, author of the State Republican Campaign 
Book of 1900, Editor. 






STATE 



Republican Campaign Book 



AND 



The Popular "Old Politician's" Letters. 



CONTAINING OFFICiAL DATA, CAREFULLY PRESERVED 
AND COMPILED, SHOWING HOW THE CONSTI- 
TUTIONAL LIMITATIONS ON THE STATE LEGISLA- 
TURE'S POWER TO TAX, TO APPROPRIATE THE 
PEOPLE'S MONEY AND TO CREATE DEBT HAVE 
BEEN PERVERTED, EVADED, IGNORED AND PER- 
SISTENTLY VIOLATED BY SUCCESSIVE DEMO- 
CRATIC ADMINISTRATIONS FOR NEARLY THIRTY 
YEARS, AND WHAT THESE ABUSES OF POWER 
COST THE PEOPLE. 



COMPILED AND EDITED BY 

E^C. BROKMEYER, 

II 

Late Jefferson City Staff Correspondent of the St. Louis 
Globe-Democrat. 



EDITORIAL AND BUSINESS OFFICES. 

FULLERTON BUILDING, 

ST. LOUIS, MO. 



^/<?0Z^ 



•fa 




PREFACE. 



TO THE PUBLIC: 

The editor undertakes to tell the truth iu this book. 
It is not a small or easy task to furnish information 
about the administration of the state government 
based upon official records when such records are 
cither incomplete or not available. Consequently the 
contents of this book must be accepted with a due 
appreciation of and regard for these facts. 

Serious charges have been boldly mad: 1 against 
Democratic state administrations. They have been 
proved by official records, such as are available, pre- 
pared and published under oath by Democratic 
officials. 

The editor conceives it to be the first duty of an 
American citizen to inform himself thoroughly as to 
the laws by which he is governed, the manner and 
motive of their making, their interpretation by the 
constituted authorities and their execution. 

If the editor has succeeded in giving even a hint 
as to the maladministration of public affairs in Mis- 
souri, and that hint becomes generally appreciated in 
all the counties and cities of the state, he will feel 
that his work has not been in vain and that he lias 
done himself, the -Republican party and the public at 
large a good service. 

Sincerely yours, 

E. C. BROKMEYER. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Violation of the Constitution 5 

State Government's Policy 6 

Constitution Violated : 7 

More Constitution Smashing 27 

School Fund Investment Void 36 

Dockery- Allen-Expert Exhibit 48 

State Funds Misappropriated 57 

Misuse of State Trust Funds 62 

Allen-Williams Case 76 

Despotic Rule in Missouri 80 

Nesbit and Police Laws 109 

Non-Contestable Elections 123 

Governmental Policies 127 

Infamous Cardwell Case 133 



THE "OLD POLITICIAN'S" LETTERS. 



Eggs and Experts 161 

School Fund Loot 179 

The School Fund 195 

Bonds and Certificates 209 

The Bond Deals 224 

The Expert Work 239 



VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 



Officially Recorded Evidence Against the Three Co- 
ordinate Branches of the State Government. 



LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 

1.— Taking money out of the state treasury with- 
out an appropriation and without the state auditor's 
warrant. 

2. — Appropriating money out of the order prescribed 
by the constitution. 

3. — Authorizing the collection of special taxes. 

4. — Authorizing the investment of the school and 
seminary fund in violation of the constitution. 

5. — Authorizing the issuance of certificates of in- 
debtedness. 

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. 

1. — Making and vouching for official reports not con- 
taining a complete record of all the financial trans- 
actions of the state government, and hence "false 
reports." 

2. — Using sacred state trust funds and authorizing 
their use for purposes other than those for which 
they were specifically created and are maintained. 

3. — Authorizing money to be withdrawn from and 
taking it out of the state treasury without a "regular 
appropriation made by law" and without an "au- 
ditor's warrant." 

4. — Permitting and ordering laws to be abused in- 
stead of "faithfully executed" by state boards and 
appointees in large cities. 

5. — Approving and signing legislative acts uncon- 
stitutional in themselves. 

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT. 

1. — Ruling that elections in any part of the state 
are non-contestible. 

2. — Sustaining special tax laws and police and elec- 
tion acts designed to disfranchise qualified voters. 

5 



STATE GOVERNMENT'S POLICY, 



PLATFORM AND ACTS SUBSTITUTING UNLIMIT- 
ED FOR LIMITED TAXATION. 



Cause of Mismanagement of State Institutions and 
Control of the Legislature by the Lobby. 



Significance of the policy announced in the Demo- 
cratic state platform of 1900 of substituting by special 
laws indirect or unlimited taxation for the constitu- 
tional direct or limited taxation. 

What the proposed constitutional amendment legal- 
izing- school certificates of indebtedness and imposing 
a perpetual tax of 3 cents on the hundred means. 

How the distribution of state institutions in various 
sections of Missouri has destroyed effective control 
of the management thereof. 

How the distribution of state institutions has re- 
sulted in the conversion of the legislature into a tool 
of the lobby. 

How the distribution of state institutions has re- 
sulted in the centralization of control of partj con- 
ventions in the hands of the state administration. 

How this vicious system could be changed and its 
resulting evils cured. 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 



DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATURES IGNORED THE 
PEOPLE'S SUPREME LAW FOR EIGH- 
TEEN CONSECUTIVE YEARS 



Took Money Out of the State Treasury Without 
a Regular Appropriation by Law. 



Appropriated the People's Money Out of the Order Pre- 
scribed by the Constitution. 



It is charged in tlie opening pages of this book that 
the legislative department of the state government 
has persistenly violated the constitution of Mis- 
souri. 

"First, in taking money out of the state treasury 
without an appropriation by law and without the 
state auditor's warrant; 

"Second, by appropriating money out of the order 
prescribed by the constitution." 

The proof follows; it is official: 

STATE CONSTITUTION. HOUSE AND SENATE 
JOURNAL EXTRACTS. 

Limitation on Legislative 



Power. Offered by Senator Hutt, 

January 13, 1883: 

Section 43, Article 4. All "Resolved, That the state 

revenue collected and inon- treasurer be authorized to 

eys received by the state take up warrants issued to 

from any source whatsoever, members of the senate for 

shall go into the treasury. mileage and stationery, and 

and the general assembly also for necessary mileage 

shall have no power to di- in going to and returning 

vert the same or to permit from the general assembly;" 

money to be drawn from the which was read and adopted, 

treasury, except in pursu- Senate Journal (1883), page 

ance of regular appropriations 97. 

made by law. All appropria- [By vote of the senate, 

tions of money by the sue- under suspension of the 

cessive general assemblies rules, the word "warrant" 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



shall be made in the follow- 
ing order: 

First— For the payment of 
all interest upon the bonded 
debt of the state that may 
become due during the term 
for which each general as- 
sembly is elected. 

Second— For the benefit of 
the sinking fund, which shall 
not be less annually than 
$250,000. 

Third— For free public 
school purposes. 

Fourth— For the payment 
of the cost of assessing and 
collecting the revenue. 

Fifth— For the payment of 
the civil list. 

Sixth— For the support of 
the eleemosynary institutions 
of the state. 

Seventh— For the pay of 
the general assembly, and 
such other purposes not 
herein prohibited, as it may 
deem necessary; but no gen- 
eral assembly shall have 
power to make any appro- 
priation of money for any 
purpose whatsoever, until the 
respective sums necessary 
for the purpose in this sec- 
tion specified have been set 
apart and appropriated, or 
to give priority in its action 
to a succeeding over a pre- 
ceding item as above enu- 
merated. 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEED- 
INGS. 



Sec. 23, Art. 4.— No law 
shall be i Kissed, except by 
bill, and no bill shall be so 
amended in its passage 
through either house, as to 
change its original purpose. 

Sec. 26.— Bills may origin- 
ate in either house, and nun- 
be amended or be rejected 
by the other: and every bill 
shall be read on three dif- 
ferent days in each house. 

Sec. 27.— Xo bill shall be 
considered for final passage 
unless t!ie same has been re- 



in the above resolution was 
made to read "certificate." 
Page 98.] 

Offered by Mr. Parker, 
January 12, 1883: 

"Resolved, That the state 
treasurer be authorized to 
take up warrants issued to 
members for mileage and 
per diem, and stationery ac- 
counts:" which was read 
and adopted— House Journal 
(1883), page 133. 

Offered by Mr. Dawson, 
January 15, 1S83: 

"Resolved, That the state 
treasurer be requested to 
pay the certificates issued by 
committee on accounts to the 
elective officers, clerical 
force, pages and laborers em- 
ployed by the house;" which 
was read and adopted.— 
House Journal (1883), page 
135. 

H. B. 666, appropriation 
bill, passed March 31, 1883. 

Offered bv Senator Britts, 
January 16, '1885: 

"Resolved, That the state 
treasurer be requested to 
take up warrants issued to 
members of the senate for 
stationery; also, for mileage 
and per diem for time neces- 
sary in going to and return- 
ing from this session of the 
general assembly:*' which 
was adopted.— Senate Journal 
(1885), page 120. 

Offered bv Senator Britts. 
January 20, 1885: 

"Resolved. That the treas- 
urer be requested to pay the 
clerks and employes of the 
senate such amounts as may 
be due them from time to 
time, properly certified by 
the chairman of the com- 
mittee on accounts:" which 
was read and adopted.— 
Senate Journal (1885), page 

134: 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 



ported upon by a committee 
and printed for the use of 
the members. 

Sec. 31.— No bill shall be- 
come a law, unless on its 
final passage the vote be 
taken by yeas and nays, the 
names of the members v vot- 
ing for and against the same 
be entered on. the journal, 
and a majority of the mem- 
bers elected to each house 
be recorded thereon as vot- 
ing in its favor. 

Sec. 36.— No law passed by 
the General Assembly, ex- 
cept the general appropria- 
tion act, shall take effect or 
go into force until ninety 
days after the adjournment 
of the session at which it 
was enacted, unless in case 
of an emergency (which 
emergency must be expressed 
in the preamble or in the 
body of the act), the Gen- 
eral Assembly shall, by a 
vote of two-thirds of all the 
members elected to each 
House, otherwise direct; 
said vote to be taken by 
yeas and nays, and entered 
upon the journal. 

Sec. 42.— Each House shall, 
from time to time, publish a 
journal of its proceedings, 
and the yeas and nays on 
any question shall be taken 
and entered on the journal 
at the motion of any two 
members. Whenever the 
yeas and nays are demanded, 
the whole list of members 
shall be called, and the 
names of the absentees shall 
be noted and published in 
the journal. 



Offered by Mr. Harrison, 
January 16, 1885: 

"Resolved, That the state 
treasurer be authorized to 
take up warrants issued to 
members for mileage and 
per diem, and stationery ac- 
counts;" which was laid over 
one day, on motion Mr. 
Shields. — House Journal 
(1885), page 139. 

Mr. Garver offered the fol- 
lowing substitute, January 
17, 1885: 

"Resolved, That the state 
treasurer be requested to 
honor certificates of mem- 
bers and employes of the 
house;" which was adopted. 
—House Journal (1885), page 
162. 

No record in session acts 
as to when appropriation bill 
pass: d. 

Offered by Mr. Newman, 
January 14, 1887: 

"Resolved, That the state 
treasurer be requested to pay 
members of the house their 
mileage, stationery and per 
diem upon the certificates of 
the committee on accounts, 
certified to by the state au- 
ditor, and also pay em- 
ployes their per diem on cer- 
tificates of said committee:" 
which was adopted.— House 
Journal (1887), page ICO. 

Appropriation bill passed 
March 21, 1887. 

Offered by Mr. Smith of St. 
Clair, January 8, 1889: 

"Resolved, That a tempo- 
rary committee of three be 
appointed to audit and al- 
low the claims of the mem- 
bers of the house, their per 
diem, mileage and station- 
ery, and that the state treas- 
urer be requested to pay 
members of the house and 
employes upon the certifi- 
cate of said committee, cer- 
tified by the auditor;" which 
was adopted. — House Journal 
1889, page 28. 

Appropriation bill passed 
April 29, 1889. 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



Offered by Mr. Abraham, January 9, 1891: 

"Resolved, That a temporary committee of three be ap- 
pointed to audit and allow the claims of the members of 
the house for their per diem, mileage and stationery, and 
that the state treasurer be requested to pay members of 
the house and employes upon the certificate of said commit- 
tee, certified bv the auditor;" which was adopted. — House 
Journal (1891), page 22. 

Appropriation bill passed Senate March 16, 1891. No other 
record. 

Offered by Mr. Black, January 6, 1S93: 

'•Resolved, That the temporary committee of three be ap- 
pointed to audit and allow the claims of members of the 
house for their per diem, mileage and stationery, and that 
the state treasurer be requested to pay members of the 
house and employes upon the certificate of said committee, 
certified by the auditor." 

Mr. Smith of Pike offered the following substitute, which 
was adopted: 

"Resolved, That the temporary committee on accounts 
be authorized to audit the claims of the members of the 
house for their per diem, mileage and stationery, and that 
the state treasurer be requested to pay members of the 
house upon the certificate of said committee, certified by the 
auditor."— House Journal (1893), page 21. 

Appropriation bill missing. 

Offered by Senator Yeater, January 9, 1895: 

"Be it resolved, That the state treasurer be directed to 
pay all certificates issued by the committee on accounts for 
the mileage, per diem, including days coming and going, and 
stationery of the members of the senate, when certified by 
the state auditor:" which was read and adopted.— Senate 
Journal (1895), page 32, 

Offered by Mr. Schooler, January 7, 1895: 

"Resolved, That a temporary committee on accounts, con- 
sisting of three members, be appointed by the speaker of 
this house, and said committee be authorized to audit the 
claims of the members for their per diem, mileage and sta- 
tionery; and that the state treasurer be requested to pay 
members of the house noon the certificate of said committee, 
when certified to by the state auditor:" which was read 
and adopted.— House Journal (1895), page 21. 

Appropriation Mil passed .March 20, 1895. 

Offered by Senator Morton (by request). January 11, 1897: 
"Resolved, Thai i lie slate auditor be requested to verify 
and the state treasurer to pay the lieutenant-gdvernor's cer- 
ificate 1 issued by the committee on accounts to the officers, 
members and employes <d* the senate of the Thirty-ninth gen- 
eral assembly. Including the temporary clerical force of the 
senate until the passage of the bill appropriating money for 
pay and contingent expenses of this general assembly," 
which was read and adopted.— Senate Journal (1897), page 21. 

10 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 



Offered by Mr. Dorsett, January 11, 1897: 

"Resolved, That the state auditor be requested to verify 
and the state treasurer to pay the speaker's certificates is- 
sued by the committee on accounts to the officers, members 
and employes of the house of representatives of the Thirty- 
ninth general assembly, until the passage of the bill appro- 
priating money for pay and for contingent expenses of this 
general assembly;" 'which was read and adopted.— House 
Journal (1897), page 32. 

Appropriation bill passed Senate March 18, 1897. No other 
record. 

Offered by Senator Hohenschild, January 9, 1899: 
"Resolved, That the state auditor be requested to verify, 
and the state treasurer to pay, the lieutenant-governor's cer- 
tificates issued by the committee on accounts to the officers, 
members and employes of the senate of the Fortieth general 
assembly, including the temporary clerical force of the sen- 
ate, until the passage of the bill appropriating money for 
pay and contingent expenses of the general assembly; and, 
further, be it 

"Resolved, That the president of the senate appoint a 
temporary committee of three to audit and issue warrants 
for the stationery, per diem and mileage of the members 
of the senate of the Fortieth general assembly;" which was 
read and adopted.— Senate Journal (1899), page 12. 

Offered by Mr. Rut ledge, January 9, 1899: 

"Resolved, That the state auditor be requested to verify, 
and the state treasurer to pay, the speaker's certificates, is- 
sued by the committee on accounts to the officers, mem- 
bers and employes of the house of representatives of the 
Fortieth general assembly, until the passage of the bill ap- 
propriating money for pay and contingent" expenses of this 
general assembly;" which was read and adopted.— House 
Journal (1899), page 21. 

Appropriation bill passed April 24, 1899. 

The same resolutions were adopted by both houses 
of the 41st general assembly, or the legislature that 
met in January, 1901, 

The appropriation bill was passed March 16, 1901, 
two days before final adjournment. Moreover, resolu- 
tions were put through each house, requesting the 
state auditor to "approve" and the state treasurer to 
"honor" the "requisitions of the proper officers" of 
state eleemosynary and penal institutions "for moneys 
with which to defray expenses for maintenance and 
officers' salaries until the approval of the appropria- 
tion bill," all in plain violation of the organic law of 
Missouri. The consequences of this and the cost to 

11 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

the people will be explained entertainingly and in- 
structively at the close of this chapter, the official 
records, as far as available, being presented first. 



ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS. 



Appropriation of Money Out of Order Prescribed 
by Constitution. 

The foregoing record proves the truth of the first 
charge, that successive Democratic legislatures per- 
sistently violated the constitution "in taking money 
out of the state treasury without an appropriation 
by law and without the state auditor's warrant." 
Officially recorded proof of the truth of the second 
charge, that the constitution was repeatedly violated 
by Democratic legislatures "appropiating money out 
of the order prescribed by the constitution,*' follows: 



Constitution. 



Journal. 



The state constitution of 
Missouri, article 4, under a 
caption, reading, "Limitation 
on Legislative Power," pro- 
vides as follows: 

Section 43. All revenue 
collected and moneys re- 
ceived by the state from any 
source whatsoever shall go 
into the treasury, and the 
general assembly shall have 
no power to divert the same, 
or to permit money to be 
drawn from the treasury, 
except in pursuance of regu- 
lar appropriations made by 
law. All appropriations of 
money by the successive gen- 
eral assemblies shall be made 
in the following order: 

1. For the payment of all 
interest upon the bonded 
debt of the state that may 
become due during the term 
for which each general as- 
sembly is elected. 

2. For the benefit of the 
sinking fund, which shall not 



The Forty-first general as- 
sembly, overwhel m i n g 1 y 
democratic in both branches, 
passed the various appropria- 
tion bills in the following or- 
der, according to the house 
and senate journals as they 
appeared last March: 

1. House bill 228, appropri- 
ating money for the support 
of the public schools, and 
house bill 229, appropriating 
money to defray the cost of 
assessing and collecting the 
revenue, passed on February 

*2. House bill 227, appro- 
priating money for the pay- 
ment of the interest on the 
bonded indebtedness of the 
state, passed February 1; 
house concurs in senate 
amendments February 12. 

3. House bill 467, appro- 
priating money for the sup- 
port, maintenance, repairs 
and improvement of elee- 
mosynary and penal institu- 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 



be less annually than $250,000. 

3. For free public-school 
purposes. 

4. For the payment of the 
cost of assessing and collect- 
ing the revenue. 

5. For the payment of the 
civil list. 

6. For the support of the 
eleemosynary institutions of 
the state. 

7. For the pay of the gen- 
eral assembly, and such other 
purposes not herein prohib- 
ited, as it may deem neces- 
sary; but no general assem- 
bly shall have power to 
make any appropriation of 
money for any purpose 
whatsoever until the respec- 
tive sums necessary for the 
purposes in this section 
specified have been set 
apart and appropriated, ox- 
to give priority in its action 
to a succeeding item, as 
above enumerated. 



tions of the state; passed 
March 9;; no date given as to 
the adoption of the confer- 
ence report, which was 
agreed to by both houses 
Saturday night, March 16, the 
closing of the season. 

4. House bill 593, appro- 
priating money for the sup- 
port, maintenance and im- 
provement of educational in- 
stitutions of the state; passed 
March 11; conference report 
adopted March 14. 

5. House bill 418, appro- 
priating money to pay the de- 
ficiencies in the expenses of 
the state government for the 
years 1899 and 1900; passed 
March 13; senate amend- 
ments concurred in by the 
house on March 16 (Saturday 
night). 

(Then follow in the official 
record these bills in the or- 
der named, although being 
recorded as having passed, or 
the conference reports as 
having been adopted on 
March 16, it is impossible to learn the exact order in which 
final passage was effected, especially when it is remembered 
that March 16 included both Saturday and Sunday.) 

House bill 230, appropriating money to pay salaries of civil 
officers; passed March 14; conference report adopted March 16. 
House bill 609, appropriating money for the support of the 
state government, the payment of the contingent and inci- 
dental expenses of the state departments, the public print- 
ing, and for the payment of certain other claims against 
the state, for which no other appropriation had. been made 
for the years 1901 and 1902; passed March 13; conference re- 
port adopted March 16. 

House bill 334, appropriating money for the pay of mileage 
and per diem of the officers and members and contingent ex- 
penses of the Forty-first general assembly; passed March 16. 

The bill appropriating money for the payment of 
the interest on the bonded indebtedness of the state, 
which the constitution expressly provides shall be 
passed first, was passed on February 12, the senate 
amendments not having been concurred in by the 
house until that date. Both the bill appropriating 
money for the public schools and to defray the cost 
of assessing and collecting the revenue, which tne 
constitution provides shall be passed after the ap- 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

propriation bill providing for the interest on the 
bonded indebtedness, were passed before it. Refer- 
ence to the foregoing record will show many other 
violations of the mandate of the constitution pre- 
scribing the order (and no other) in which the people's 
money shall be appropriated. 



EVOLUTION OF THE LOBBY. 



Violations of the Constitution Have Not Been "Tech- 
nical," but Most Vital and Costly. 

The violations of the constitution proved are not 
"technical." They were and are vital in their nature, 
as will be herein demonstrated. As a preliminary, 
the editor presents a scene illustrating just how and 
where and by whom the constitution has been vio- 
lated and for what purpose. 

SCENE E 
The two houses of the general assembly have been organ- 
ized a day or two, and log-rolling for the positions of clerks, 
pages, spitton-eleaners. superintendents of heating and ven- 
tilation, custodians of the cloak-room, messengers, messen- 
gers' clerks, etc., etc.. etc. etc., without end, is brisk, when 
bright and early, or as soon as the state auditor's office is 
opened for business, in steps a member of the legislature 
with an air of some importance. He hangs the upper half of 
his eorporosity upon the auditor's table. Leaning upon one 
elbow, he dives down into his pants' pocket, brings out a 
piece of crumpled paper, places it upon the table, irons it 
with his other hand until it is recognizable as his pay ac- 
count or certificate for mileage, stationery and per diem for 
a day or two. properly verified by the house of which be is a 
member. 

"See here. Jim," lit was "Jim" when Seibert was 
state auditor — for 12 years), addressing the auditor 
with slovenly familiarity, "they tell me that you 
have to put your list to thai before it will fetch the 
stuff out of the state treasury- how is that?" 

"Yes, Sam,'' replies the auditor, "I have to give 
you a warrant for this, but, you see, it is not lime 
vet. Under the state constitution and laws we can 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 

not pay out a penny until the appropriation bill is 
passed and has become a law, and it has not even 
been introduced yet." 

"What's that? Appropriation bill! And the con- 
stitution says that?" 

"Dead square fact, Sam!" 

"Constitution be damned! I want my money — the 
cash I paid out in traveling expenses to get up here 
to this robbers' roost! Damn me, Jim, if they didn't 
clean me out last night! Up our way they think I 
know a Jack from a ten-spot, but I tell you what's 
a fact, they not only made me look cheap, but feel 
cheap. And you say there is no chance to get what 
is coming to me on that — no way at all?" 

SCENE II. 

The auditor moves quietly around to the left of his table, 
takes Sam by the elbow aud advances to his private office— 
an ante-room looking out on to the east entrance to the 
statehouse. The tone of the auditor's voice changes to an 
audible whisper, indicating to Sam intuitively that they have 
been transacting public business and have entered upon a 
little private transaction strictly between themselves, brought 
about by the query of Sam— "Is there no other way tO' the 
state treasury than the constitutional or legal one?" After 
beating around the bush, pumping his prospective friend dry 
of his knowledge of the political situation in the part of the 
state where he resides, the auditor's voice drops still lower, 
from fairly to barely audible, as he enters upon an answer 
to Sam's question, which, because of the circumstances that 
Jim brings his lips almost in contact with Sam's auricle, pre- 
vents us from reporting the conversation further. This ear- 
kissing ended, they start back into the public office and the 
interview is resumed in ordinary tone of voice. In less than 
two minutes, Sam steps down the hall of the capitol to the 
state treasurer's office with a pay certificate "O. K'd" by 
the state auditor for the amount of the claim presented and 
draws his pay — unless, perchance, some one-armed ex-confed- 
erate should happen to be treasurer — some luckless fellow 
who never knew anything but to do- his duty, and do it well. 
in whatever situation he might be placed — that armless sleeve 
dangling from his shoulder being an impressive symbol of 
duty honorably performed in the battle of life. (See Capt. 
F. L. Pitts' history.) If one of these should happen to have 
been behind the state treasurer's counter, Sam would have 
been disappointed. There can be no fondling of such— ear- 
kissing does not go. This case, however, is an exception — 
the exception— and the rule is that Sam gets his money. An- 
other rule, to which there is no exception, is that the armless 
sleeve is sat upon by the next democratic state convention. 

15 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

THE "PAY CHECK" SCANDAL. 

But the pay certificate "O.K'd." by the state auditor 
presented to the state treasurer by "Sam"! Is this 
an "auditor's warrant," provided for by the constitu- 
tion? Let's see. It is this pay account with the 
state auditor's "O.K." on the back that is honored 
by the state treasurer and is kept by tiim as a voucher 
until the appropriation bill becomes a law. As soon 
as this event transpires the auditor redeems this 
voucher, this pay account, with a warrant bearing the 
date of its issue, and thus the stubs of the warrant 
book in the auditor's office show up all right. Ac- 
cording to this, no warrant was issued in violation of 
the provisions of the state constitution, which says: 

"All moneys in the state treasury shall be disbursed by 
said treasurer for the purposes of the state, according to 
law, upon warrants drawn by the state auditor, and not 
otherwise."— State Constitution, Article 10, Section 15. 

Yes, the books show up all right, but what about 
the facts? Are they a true record of the transactions 
which they purport to witness? Is this warrant that 
purports to authorize the disbursement of state funds 
a true entry when these very funds were disbursed 
months ago without the warrant either of law or 
the constitution? These books bear witness that 
the members of the general assembly were paid at 
a time when in truth and fact they were not paid; 
that they were paid upon auditor's warrants when 
they were paid upon an "O.K" account, and when 
the legislators neither saw nor handled a warrant; 
that they were paid in accordance with the constitu- 
tion* and laws of the state, when in truth ami tact 
they were paid in flagrant disregard and known vio- 
lation of both. 

And these books were thus kept to bear this false 
testimony because their keepers knew that they were 
violating their oaths of otfice and that their own 

16 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 

books would convict them of the crime if they were 
truthful records of the financial transactions of the 
executive department of the state of Missouri, as 
required by section 22, article 5, of the constitution: 

"An account shall be kept by the officers of the execu- 
tive department of all moneys and choses in action dis- 
bursed, or otherwise disposed of by them severally, from 
all sources and for every service performed; and a semi- 
annual report thereof shall be made to the governor 
under oath. And any officer or manager who at any 
time shall make a false report shall be guilty of perjury 
and punished accordingly." 

THE FALL OP LAWMAKERS. 

These scenes are sketched in general outline. They 
are not intended as presenting the invariable occur- 
rence in each and ever case. They present merely 
the general norm, modified in actual presentation to 
suit the individual case in question. But while the 
application varies, the result is invariable. Every 
legislator who enters that private office finds means 
to convince the auditor that he is entitled to his wad, 
in spite of the law and constitution. 

But a week ago Sam arrived at Jefferson City as 
a member-elect of the general assembly. He pre- 
sented his credentials. They were accepted. He 
was sworn in. He took the following solemn oath: 
"I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will support the 
Constitution of the United States and of the State of Mis- 
souri, and faithfully perform the duties of my office; and 
that I will not knowingly receive, directly or indirectly, 
any money or other valuable thing, for the performance 
or nonperformance of any act or duty pertaining to my 
office, other than the compensation allowed by law."— 
STATE CONSTITUTION, Art. 4, Sec. 15. 

This completed his right to be called and known in 

tlie community as the "honorable member" irom 

- county or district. As such "honorable mem- 

ber," which ought certainly include the title of "hon- 

17 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

orable man," he came to the auditor's office, and he 
leaves it as what? 

He came after swearing an oath, the sacred obliga- 
tion of which was fealty to the supreme law of the 
state — the constitution. He is truly informed as to 
what the constitution provides in regard to the trans- 
action pending — namely, that 

"No moneys shall ever be paid out of the treasury of 
this state, or any of the funds under its management, 
except in pursuance of an appropriation by law," etc.— 
STATE CONSTITUTION, Art. 10, Sec. 19. 

The legislator's hand has scarcely ceased quivering 
from swearing the oath that made him recognized 
as an" "honorable member" when he violates that 
oath, and with his own hand signs himself "dis- 
honorable." He has sold himself to the Devil — the 
self-styled, egg-sucking, sand-bagging lobby — and 
signed the bond. Henceforth he is the tool of that 
lobby. He beats the bush while the boss catches the 
bird. He raises thunder for the boss to sell um- 
brellas. He sandbags the victim while the boss takes 
the purse. He entered the auditor's office an honor- 
able man. He leaves it a perjurer. So says the con- 
stitution. Read! 

"Any member of either house refusing to take said 
oath or affirmation, shall be deemed to have thereby 
vacated his office, AND ANY MEMBER CONVICTED OF 
HAVING VIOLATED HIS OATH OR AFFIRMATION, 
SHALL BE DEEMED GUILTY OF PERJURY, AND BE 
FOREVER THEREAFTER DISQUALIFIED FROM HOLD- 
ING ANY OFFICE OF TRUST OR PROFIT IN THIS 
STATE."— STATE CONSTITUTION, Art. 4, Sec. 15. 

"SAM" FOLLOWS "JIM'S" EXAMPLE. 
In the extracts from the journals of the two houses 
of the general .assembly, published heretofore, we see 
Sam as fully developed as the up-to-date typical 
member of either the house or the senate. That self- 
is 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 

reliant swagger with which he entered the auditor's 
office years ago, and which was recognized by the 
experienced eye of Jim as very promising raw ma- 
terial, has been elaborated into the finished product, 
which for cool impudence and barefaced audacity 
challenges the world. 

Years ago Sam was taught by Jim that the taking 
of people's money without their consent, especially 
when you had sworn not to do so, was a transaction 
requiring secrecy, could only be treated of in 
whispers — "a sacred, private matter, strictly be- 
tween you and me, Sam." But as Jim's activity 
extended this private matter to Bill, Jake, John, etc., 
Sam soon became typical of a majority of the house 
of which he is a member, and as such, what use is 
there for privacy? "Besides, didn't Jim treat me 
rather shabbily? In dividing the swag, he got the 
turkey, I the feathers — every time. Where is the 
sense in us slipping down to his office asking favors 
— putting ourselves under obligation? I'll show him 
a trick worth two of that. If he has the right to 
authorize the treasurer to pay out money without an 
appropriation, what is the matter with us — with this 
house?" And the result is, he introduces the resolu- 
tion reproduced hereafter. 

It is true, this resolution has no legal value what- 
ever. It can neither add nor take one iota from the 
duties devolving upon the state executive department. 
It is the action of one house, and not the action of the 
general assembly. Again, if it were the action of the 
general assembly it would still be inadequate to this 
end. For the constitution says, in section 14, of article 
5: "Provided, that no resolution shall have the effect 
to repeal, extend, alter or amend any laws." 

Legally, therefore, these resolutions are nothing 
more than so many requests, prepared by each house, 

19 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

on its own behalf, that the members of the executive 
department — auditor and treasurer — would be pleased 
to join the respective house that makes the request, 
in perpetrating the crime against the people of vio- 
lating the constitution; of violating their oaths of 
office; of becoming perjurors in the eye of that con- 
stitution and the people whose fiat made it the 
supreme law of the state. 

And did these officers comply with these requests V 
Did they join the two houses in this conspiracy 
against the treasury of the people? 

PROOF OF GUILT. 

To this question we have no answer based upon 
recorded evidence accessible to us, except what is 
contained in the series of requests itself. It is hardly 
probably that house after house, senate after senate, 
would repeat the same identical request, session after 
session, if they had not found a ready compliance, 
nor is there any reason for the false entries in the 
auditor's books, as herein explained, except to cover 
up this compliance. The recorded evidence, inac- 
cessible, is contained in the books of the committee 
on accounts of the two houses, and in the accounts 
themselves, privately O. K.'d by the auditor, subse- 
quently redeemed from the treasurer and which are 
held by him as vouchers until final settlement, when 
they are burned. 

But what can be the motive of the members in 
preferring these requests? Have they not the power 
to pass the appropriation bill at any time and alto- 
gether at their own pleasure? 

Most undoubtedly they have that power. Ten days 
after the two houses arc organized, the general ap- 
propriation bill can be a law if the members are in- 
clined to obey the spirit and letter of the charter, of 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 

their official existence, respect their oaths of office, 
or simply do what they have sworn to do. 

Why, then, do they not merely ignore, but utterly 
pervert every safeguard which the people have 
thrown around their treasury? We say "pervert," 
for while the constitution provides that the pay of 
the general assembly shall be the last item of public 
expenditure to be provided for, these resolutions make 
it the first; while the constitution provides that the 
general assembly "shall have no power to permit 
money to be drawn from the treasury, except 1n 
pursuance of regular appropriations made by law," 
these resolutions do not merely permit, but actually 
request that the money be disbursed without appro- 
priation by law. They do not merely ignore, but 
pervert, and this not by placing the will of the gen- 
eral assembly, but that of each house, in the place 
of the will of the people; thus sweeping away all the 
safeguards thrown around legislative action as well. 
For "appropriation by law" means what? It means 
that bills making the appropriation have been read 
on three different days in each house; have been con- 
sidered by a committee; have been printed for the 
use of the members; have received a majority of the 
votes of the members elected to each house, and that 
this majority vote appears upon the journals of these 
houses, together with the signature of the presiding 
officer in testimonj^ of these facts. These are the 
constitutional requirements that transform a bill into 
a law, so far as the two houses of the general as- 
sembly are concerned. 

A STARTLING RECORD. 
In lieu of this we have the record: 

Mr. introduced the following resolution, which was 

read and adopted: 

Amen! How pertinent, short and sweet! 

Of the three co-ordinate powers — house, senate and 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

governor — whose deliberate action is necessary to pass 
a law, these resolutions received the attention of one 
house; in lieu of the affirmative vote of the majority 
of the members elected to that house, they received 
the vote of a majority of the members present; and 
in lieu of the names of the members who voted for 
and adopted the resolution, we have the simple memo- 
randum: "The resolution was read and adopted." 

Independent, therefore, of the criminal purpose of 
the resolution, the action intended to give them valid- 
ity involves not less than three additional and dis- 
tinct violations of the supreme law of the state; and 
the general assembly, by this record, degrades itself 
to a mob and its action to mob legislation. 

The question, therefore, recurs: "Why this perver- 
sion; why this disloyalty to their constituents; why 
this criminal disregard of their oaths of office?" 

But before answering this important question, it 
is necessary to call attention to the second charge 
made in the introductory of this book, namely, that 
the state constitution was violated repeatedly by 
Democratic legislatures passing bills appropriating 
money out of the state treasury not in accordance 
with the mandate of that constitution. For sixteen 
consecutive years has this been done. Now for some 
light on the motives underlying these various abuses 
of power delegated by the constitution and the con- 
sequences, especially the cost to the people. 

"way to state treasury made easy. 

The state constitution of 1875 went into effect in 
1876. It was the supreme law of the state until the 
second general assembly under the Crittenden ad- 
ministration, in 1883, when the powers over the peo- 
ple's treasury granted by that instrument to the 
general assembly and treasurer were found inade- 
quate, the mode of getting at the money altogether 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 

too irksome, and a more direct, simple and effective 
method was suggested by way of experiment. 

Mr. J. M. Seibert, state treasurer during the next 
administration, appreciated the utility of the sugges- 
tion and continued the experiments with slight modi- 
fication. The modification relates to the fact that the 
new constitutional provision as suggested and in force 
during the session of the first general assembly, the 
first two years of J. M. Seibert's term as treasurer, 
simplified the "getting at the people's money" by 
eliminating the state auditor's function entirely. The 
resolutions of the house or senate of 1885, which ex- 
press the new organic provisions, read as follows: 

"Resolved, That the treasurer be requested to honor 
certificates of members and employes of the house," 
which was adopted. (See House Journal, 1885, page 
162, or the State Republican.) 

In simplicity and directness this may be regarded 
as perfection itself — unless, indeed, a separate key to 
the vault be furnished to each member of the house 
or senate. No red tape here! No warrant issued by 
a bonded state officer! A simple certificate issued by 
some member of the house or senate that happens to 
be chairman of the committee on accounts is all- 
sufficient! 

But after two years' experience in the treasurer's 
office it could not escape the penetration of James M. 
Seibert that if the auditor had nothing to do with 
the payment of the general assembly, the influence 
of the office — that is, its lobby value — would be 
seriously impaired, and as it had been suggested that 
he himself become a candidate for that office, the 
resolution of 1887 reads: 

Resolved, that the state treasurer be requested to 
pay members of the house their mileage, stationery 
and per diem upon the certificate of the committee 

23 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

on accounts, certified by the state auditor, and also 
pay employes their per diem on certificates of said 
committee," which was adopted. (See House Journal, 
1887, page 100.) 

In this form it was adopted by the Francis admin- 
istration (J. M. Seibert, auditor). With the simple 
addition that the payment of certificates should con- 
tinue until the appropriation bill became a law. it 
was handed down to its successor, the present in- 
cumbent. Under these circumstances the present 
state auditor, Capt. Albert O. Allen, naturally waived 
the "formality," trivial as it was, of awaiting the 
passage of the appropriation bill by the general as- 
sembly, when he ordered State Treasurer Williams, 
last summer, to return to the Delmar race track book- 
makers their licenses, which they had paid into the 
state treasury for the privilege of transacting their 
business. Capt. Allen had himself seen to it that the 
licenses were collected and converted into the state 
treasury, but when Col. Ed. Butler notified James M. 
Seibert that he (Butler) owned the Kiuloch race track, 
and that it could not operate while the Delmar course 
was open, because the Butler track was so much its 
inferior, Mr. Seibert promptly ordered his former 
chief clerk, Capt. Allen, to recall the Delmar licenses, 
which was forthwith done. 

TREASURY MADE A LOBBY FUND. 
The great advantage of the abuse of the constitu- 
tion by legislative resolution and practice, as set 
forth, lies in the fact that it transforms the people's 
treasury into a lobby fund with which to control the 
action of the general assembly. Under the old con- 
stitutional provision the general assembly had to pass 
the appropriation bill promptly after the two houses 
were organized, if the members wanted or needed 
money. Under the new provision, adopted without 

24 



CONSTITUTION VIOLATED. 

any fuss among, or expense to the people, there is no 
such necessity. The last day of the session is as good 
as the first, as far as their pay is concerned. (Wit- 
ness the passage of the appropriation hills in the 
closing days of the general assembly of 1901.) 

Under the old constitutional provision no time is 
allowed for a division of the people's money among 
the different members of the house or senate who 
represent the eleemosynary, educational and other 
state institutions located in the various sections. 
What chance is there for those localities to make 
their influence felt — for swapping jack-knives — votes 
— for log-rolling — you tickle me and I'll tickle you? 
All this requires time, and how can you expect mem- 
bers to put off their own pay day to grant this time? 
The official life of the members and senators repre- 
senting the various counties and districts of Calla- 
way, Boone, Johnson, Buchanan, Adair, Vernon, 
Phelps, Cape Girardeau, etc., depends literally upon 
the size of the appropriation they can secure in the 
names of the state institutions located in their re- 
spective counties and districts, and this depends upon 
the number of times each member and senator can 
swap his vote for some other member's bill for a vote 
for his appropriation bill, and this again depends 
upon the number of weeks and months the session 
has lasted before the appropriation bill is put upon 
its final passage. 

It is this actual situation which the people sought 
to meet by the simple provisions of the constitution 
of 1875, and it is this actual situation which has wiped 
out those provisions in practice and transformed the 
people's treasury into a lobby fund to control the 
action of the general assembly. 

The lobby's expenses at the last session of the 
general assembly aggregated nearly $600,000. This 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

little item represents the amount the appropriations 
made by the last legislature exceed those of former 
sessions. The people will foot the bill. Dr. Dockery, 
more than any other state official, is responsible, for it 
was with his connivance and by the use of his pa- 
tronage that the lobby organized the general as- 
sembly. 

Moreover, it was by his order and through his 
manipulation that licensed industries, already heavily 
taxed, were made to suffer great burdens, which they, 
in turn, will cause consumers of their products to 
bear. To the extent of over nearly one million dol- 
lars a year, which the brewers and whisky distillers 
will have to pay as taxes, in addition to what they 
paid before the last legislature convened, are these 
industries indebted to Gov. Alexander M. Dockery, 
to whose "campaign fund they contributed more than 
auy other interest. What the Dockery administration 
does not get out of the brewers and whisky men of 
the state to pay the large appropriations made by the 
last lesiglature, it will take out of the state interest, 
sinking, revenue or school funds, place a certificate 
of indebtedness in the school fund, or deliberately 
cause another "discrepancy" in some of these sacred 
funds. No matter what the method pursued, the peo- 
ple will pay the freight, every time. 



MORE CONSTITUTION SMASHING. 



DIRECT OK LIMITED TAXATION CHANGED BY 

SPECIAL LAWS TO INDIRECT OR UN- 

LIMITED TAXATION. 



Taxation Increased Over Sixty-Three Per Cent by 
Democrats in Thirty Years. 



Franchise Tax Fiasco— Samples of Democratic « 'Local 
Self-Governmeiit." 



The frainers of the State Constitution of 1875 in 
their wisdom, and with an eye single to the best in- 
terests of the people, did three things for which the 
people of Missouri should never forget them. Time 
has shown the broad statesmanship that dictated 
their policy, and a true record of the financial trans- 
actions of the state for twenty-five years would show 
how taxation would have been reduced to a mini- 
mum, and how the state bonded debt would have 
been wiped out and two-fifths of the entire state tax 
stopped years ago, had the affairs of state been ad- 
ministered in accordance with the provisions of the 
present constitution. The three things which led 
the people to adopt that constitution by a vote of 
93,000 to 7,000 are: 

1. The limitations placed on the taxing power of 
the general assembly. 

2. The limitations placed on the power of the 
general assembly to appropriate the people's money. 

3. The limitations placed on the power of the 
general assembly to make debts in the name of the 
people. 

27 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

All of these safeguards thrown around the people's 
treasury and the credit of the state have been arbi- 
trarily, deliberately and persistently ignored or per- 
verted for sixteen consecutive years or more by suc- 
cessive democratic state administrations. This has 
been done: 

First. By changing the constitutional system of di- 
rect into direct taxation, thereby opening boundless 
field for public plunder. 

Second. By withdrawing money from the state 
treasury either by resolution of a single house of 
the general assembly, as herein shown, or by the 
arbitrary act of the state auditor, instead of "in pur- 
suance of regular appropriations made by law." 

Third. By evading the constitutional limitation on 
the debt-making power of the general assembly 
through the misappropriation, misapplication or mis- 
use of sacred state trust funds, thereby continuing 
the state bonded debt beyond the time limited by the 
constitution, and thereby continuing to assess and 
collect ten cents on the $100 valuation (two-fifths of 
the entire state tax) when this tax should cease <<» 
have been collected w T ith the liquidation of the state 
'Id)) years ago, under express provision of the con- 
stitution. 

The following chapter, headed "Unlimited Tax- 
ation," substantiates the third charge in the intro- 
ductory of this book, that the legislative department 
violated the constitution by •'authorizing the collec- 
tion of special taxes": 



UNLIMITED TAXATION. 



All Taxes are Not "Uniform" and are Not Collected by 
•'General Laws." 
"Taxes may be levied and collected for public purposes 
only. They shall be uniform upon the same class of sub- 

2i> 



MORE CONSTITUTION SMASHING. 

jects within the territorial limits of the authority levying 
the tax, and all taxes shall be levied and collected by 
general laws."— Sec. 3, Art. 10, State Constitution. 

Here is only a partial list of the laws now in ex- 
istence, and enacted since 1881 which impose special 
taxes and create new offices, one of the Democratic 
methods of "reducing taxation:" 

( 'orporation tax. 

Dramshop tax. 

Excise tax. 

Pool tables. 

Billiard tables. 

Race tracks. 

Manufacture of beer. 

Manufacture of whisky and wine. 

Insurance tax. 

Inheritance tax. 

Building and loan association inspection. 

Bank and trust company inspection. 

Coal mine inspection. 

Dead and zinc mine inspection. 

Factory inspection. 

Express company tax. 

Steamboat tax. 

Barber law. 

Dental law. 

Board of health act 

Coal oil inspection. 

Bureau of geology. 

Bureau of labor. 

Insurauce department. 

Grain inspection. 

Merchants' license. 

Manufacturers' license. 

Embalmers' board. 

Bridge taxation. 

Taxation of telephones. 

And please don't forget it — the consumer, -not the 
corporal ion, pays the tax in the end, every time! 

29 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

A MAN'S SHAVE TAXED. 

Democratic leaders never cease to boast in their 
state platforms and on the hustings of the extent to 
which they have "reduced" the burdens of taxa- 
tion in Missouri during the past 30 years, or since the 
democracy assumed control of the state government. 
Direct taxation has been reduced, but through the 
operation of the state constitution, which made the 
reduction compulsory. The democratic managers 
surely will not claim the constitution as a child ex- 
clusively of their parentage! 

While direct taxation has been reduced, as stated, 
the democratic managers discreetly fail to direct pub- 
lic attention to the manner in which their successive 
state administrations and legislatures have regulraly 
and systematically increased the burdens of taxation 
indirectly, or through special legislation. They have 
taxed everything through special laws from a shave 
on a man's face to the estate which he leaves when 
lie no longer has a face to shave. Barbers must be 
licensed and pay a tax. The collateral inheritance 
tax is well known. Dentists and doctors also pay a 
license tax, and even the fellow who handles human 
clay when it is about to return to dust must pay a 
special tax. Verily have democratic administrations 
"reduced" the burdens of taxation. 

More proof of the fact, you say? Take the re- 
ceipts of the state revenue fund for the years 1871 
and 1872 and the estimated receipts for the same 
funds in 1901 and 1902. Here they are: 

TAXES INCREASED SIXTY-THREE PER CENT. 

Revenue fund receipts (1871-2) $3,051,113 

Estimated revenue receipts (1901-2) $5,000,000 

Increase in taxation for the biennial period, 

represented alone by the revenue fund. $1,948,887 

no 



MORE CONSTITUTION SMASHING. 

This increase, of nearly $2,000,000 every two years, 
in taxation does not include the fees and license 
taxes collected by appointees of the governor, such 
as coal oil, mine and factory and beer inspectors, ex- 
cise, license and whisky tax commissioners, etc., 
part or all of which fees such apointees put in their 
pockets. Yes, to be sure, the several democratic ad- 
ministrations have "reduced" taxation in Missouri. 

The constitution of Missouri limits direct taxes for 
state revenue purposes to 15 cents on the $100 valua- 
tion, as the aggregate taxable wealth of the state now 
stands at more than a billion dollars. For many 
years, however, the state board of equalization kept 
the total value at about $900,000,000, so as to levy 
20 cents on the $100. When absolutely compelled to 
go above this limit, a jump was made of over $100,- 
000,000, and this has since been increased. Plainly 
the constitution contemplated that these taxes would 
suffice for state revenue purposes. As a matter of 
fact scarcely half the revenue is raised in this way. 
Since 1880 no less than 29 different laws have been 
enacted to impose additional taxes. 

Every business corporation that is organized in the 
state must pay a special tax to the state revenue fund, 
ranging from $50 up. This tax amounts to more 
than $125,000 a year. Fifteen years ago the state col- 
lected $50 from each dramshop. This has since been 
increased to $100, making a pick-up of about $200,- 
000 a year. Pool tables and billiard tables also pay 
a special state tax. Race tracks were taken in 
several years ago, and by paying a special tax of $10 
are given an exclusive privilege of gambling. This 
law was boodled through the legislature by St. Louis 
and Kansas City race track men. (For further in- 
formation apply to Secretary of State S. B. Cook.) 

31 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

DEAD MEN AND UNDERTAKERS TAXED. 

Dead men have not escaped. The estates of those 
who die and have no immediate relatives in this 
country mnst pay an inheritance tax of five per cent. 
The insurance companies have been taken in. and 
must pay two per cent on their business, while build- 
ing and loan associations, banks and trust companies 
must pay special fees to examiners. These fees, 
while they do not go to the state, are, nevertheless, a 
special tax of about $10 a year on each institution, and 
go into the pockets of democratic examiners. Bar- 
bers, dentists, doctors and even undertakers must all 
pay small fees or taxes for the privilege of follow- 
ing their avocations. They are one and all at the 
mercy of political boards appointed by the governor. 

Special laws have been enacted to exact taxes from 
bridges across streams dividing Missouri from other 
states, and the rate is fixed the same as on real es- 
tate or personal properly. Coal oil has not escaped 
the democratic statesmen. In order to make more 
offices a coal oil inspection law was passed in 1881. 
It levies a tax of 12 cents on each barrel of illumin- 
ating oil. Merchants and manufacturers must also 
pay special taxes for being on earth, and so must the 
fanner who ships his surplus grain to St. Louis, Kan- 
sas City or St. Joseph. At any of these points his 
grain must be inspected by democratic inspectors 
who charge whatever rate the railroad and warehouse 
commissioners may fix. The rate is always hign 
enough to pay a small army of inspectors fat salaries, 
ranging from $75 a month to $3,000 a year. Express 
companies were not overlooked. A special law was 
passed in 1889 taxing thorn $1.25 on the $100 of gross 
business they do in the course of a year. A special 
tax law also looks after steamboats. In addition 



MORE CONSTITUTION SMASHING. 

to the usual tax a separate law levies five per eem 
on their hull measurement. 

FRANCHISE TAX FIASCO. 

In addition to several special tax laws directed 
against corporations, a special law was passed at 
the last session of the legislature to tax franchise 
privileges. This law should have been designated 
as a "Special act to furnish money to the demo- 
cratic state committee." It will be used against 
such corporations as do not make liberal contribu- 
tions. In other respects the law is largely a farce. 
The beer and whisky inspection laws have been in 
operation for some months. It is plain now that 
they will produce over $1,000,000 of revenue by the 
close of the fiscal year. 

Since 1880 a large number of offices have been 
created in this state and the expenses of the state 
government more than doubled. While some of these 
officials do not receive their salaries direct from the 
state treasurer, yet they are paid in fees they exact 
from the interests effected. This is true of the coal 
oil inspectors, excise commissioners, bank and build- 
ing and loan association examiners. In the 80s the 
grain inspection law was passed. It empowers the 
board of railroad and warehouse commissioners to 
appoint a chief grain inspector and a large number' of 
deputies, all of whom are paid out of fees exacted 
from the shippers. As a matter of fact these offices 
are principally filled with relatives of the commis- 
sioners, and the law is not regarded as a particle of 
good to the grain interests of the state, but rather 
a detriment. Under its operation the grain business 
is going to Chicago. 

DEMOCRATIC "LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT." 
Among the first new offices created was that 'of 
labor commissioner. The original act has been 

33 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

added to by several legislatures. Now we have a 
factory inspection department, a free employment 
bureau, two mine inspectors, and quite a number of 
democratic officials who owe their jobs to the in- 
ception of this law. Everyone of them draws a 
salary from the state. A little later the insurance 
department was added, and taken to Jefferson City. 
This gave good offices to half a dozen democrats 
and required the insurance companies to pay their 
salaries. On the heels of this a building and loan 
association department was established, which gave 
offices to two or three more democrats. The bureau 
of geology was added in 1889 at a cost of from $15,- 
000 to $20,000 a year, and the legislature branched 
out and provided for examining boards for the doc- 
tors, dentists and barbers. The corn doctors have 
escaped up to date, but they will doubtless receive 
attention later on. 

Some of these special office-holders report only 
to the governor, and the fees they receive do not 
appear in the auditor's reports. It is not too much 
to say that in one way or another millions of dol- 
lars a year are exacted through special tax laws, and 
a good deal of this goes in salaries to democratic 
officials. 

I*n 1889 the legislature sought to impose a special 
tax on department stores, but the law was held to 
be unconstitutional by the supreme court. A special 
tax law had been enacted prior to this for the benefit 
of the state university, wherein it was attempted 
to impose an additional tax on new corporations. 
This law, the supreme court also held to be invalid. 

OTHER FIELDS TO INVADE. 

It must be remembered that the legislature has 
been engaged in this line of special legislation since 

34 



MORE CONSTITUTION SMASHING. 

1881. There are other fields yet to be invaded. It 
is true that the state tax of late years, for revenue 
purposes, has been reduced from 20 to 15 cents on 
the $100 valuation. The democrats are never tired 
of boasting about reducing taxes, but they do not 
mention the special laws they have enacted to levy 
taxes in another direction. The 5 per cent loss is 
compensated for in other ways and greatly exceeded. 
There does not seem to be any limit to the number of 
special tax laws that may be enacted. Pretty soon 
the state tax on dram shops will be raised again, 
and the race tracks, telephone companies and a 
number of other interests will no doubt receive ad- 
ditional attention. 

Citizen, the feast of the Democratic vultures will 
become a fast only when you drive the cormorants 
from power! 



SCHOOL FUND INVESTMENT VOID 



CONSTITUTION SAYS ASSETS MUST BE INVESTED 
IN "BONDS OF THE STATE OR UNITED STATES." 



Orgaaic Law of 1875 Amended by Democratic Leg- 
islatures, but not by the People. 



Why Were Bonds Changed to Certificates of Indebtedness 
if Both are the Same? 



"Authorizing the investment of the school and 
seminary fund in violation of the constitution" and 
"authorizing the issuance of certificates of indebted- 
ness" are the third and fourth charges preferred 
against democratic legislatures in this book. 

What does the constitution of 1875 provide? Read: 

Sec. 9, Art. 11 "No part of the public school fund 

shall ever be invested in the stock or bonds or other 
obligation of any other state, or of any county, city, 
town, or corporation ; and the proceeds of the sales of 
any bonds or other property, which now belong-, or may 
hereafter belong 1 , to said school fund, shall be invested in 
the bonds of the State of Missouri, or of the United 
States." 

Does this mandate of the supreme law of the people 
order the investment of the school fund, or any part 
thereof in "certificates of indebtedness?" Has the 
constitution of 1875 been amended so as to include 
the words "certificates of indebtedness" in the pro- 
vision just quoted? Yes, it has been so amended. 
By whom? By the people? No! By whom, then? 
By democratic legislatures without the authority 
of the people. Proof? Here it is: 

(See Laws of Missouri, 1881, page 204.) 

36 



SCHOOL FUND INVESTMENT VOID. 



Section 1. The board of fund commissioners of the state 
shall, on the first day of July, 1881, issue a certificate of 
indebtedness of the State of Missouri, payable thirty years 
after date, and bearing 6 per cent interest, payable annually 
on the first day of January, for the amount of the two thou- 
sand and nine Missouri State 6 per cent bonds, and the 
nine hundred thousand dollar certificate of indebtedness 
now held in trust by the State for the permanent school 
fund. 

Sec. 2. Said certificate of indebtedness shall be signed by 
the governor, countersigned by the secretary of state, and 
sealed with the great seal of the State, and shall be non-ne- 
gotiable, and shall be sacredly preserved in the State Treas- 
ury for the permanent school fund of the state. 

Sec. 3. There shall also be issued by the fund commis- 
sioners a certificate of indebtedness for the one hundred 
and twenty-two Missouri State 6 per cent bonds now held in 
trust by the state for the seminary fund, whi'ch certificate 
shall be executed in every respect as provided in the pre- 
ceding sections, for issuing a certificate for the public school 
fund, interest made payable at the rate of 6 per cent per an- 
num, on the first day of January of each year. Said certifi- 
cate shall be kept and sacredly preserved in the State Treas- 
ury for the seminary fund. 

Sec. 4. The two thousand and nine bonds of the State of 
Missouri, and the certificate of indebtedness for the sum of 
nine hundred thousand dollars now on deposit in the State 
Treasury, and held in trust for the permanent school fund 
of the state, and one hundred and twenty-two bonds of the 
state held in trust for the seminary fund, shall, as soon as 
the certificates of indebtedness provided for in sections one 
and three of this act, are prepared, executed and sealed as 
provided herein, be, by the fund commissioners, delivered to 
the state auditor, who shall immediately proceed, in the 
presence of said commissioners, to cancel the same and all 
interest coupons thereto attached, by purchasing, and he 
shall preserve the same in the scrap-book bond register kept 
in the office. 

Sec. 5. The certificate of indebtedness authorized to be 
issued to the permanent school fund of the state by section 
one of this act, and the certificate of indebtedness author- 
ized to be issued to the seminary fund by section three 
thereof, shall be executed on. good parchment papir, and 
shall be and remain a sacred and irrevocable obligation of 
the state, unconvertible and untransferable from the pur- 
poses of its issues, but shall remain as so much of the per- 
manent school fund and of the seminary fund as is repre- 
sented in their amount respectivelv. 

Sec. 6. This act shall take effect *on the first day of July. 
1881, and all acts and parts of acts relating to the invest- 
ment of the permanent school fund and seminary fund, or 
any part thereof, in the bonds of this state, or as is repre- 
sented by the certificate of indebtedness of the state now 
held in trust for said school fund, is hereby repealed. 

Approved March 3, 1881. 

(See Laws of Missouri, 1883, page 180.) 

Section 1. The board of fund commisssioners of the state 
shall, upon the passage of this act, issue a certificate of in- 
debtedness of the State of Missouri, payable twenty years 

37 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



after date and bearing interest at the rate of 5 per cent per 
annum, payable semi-annually on the first day of January 
and July of each year, for all bonds of the State of Missouri 
now in the hands of the treasurer of the board of curators 
of the state university, except such bonds as may have been 
called for redemption by the state and purchased with money 
derived from the sale of agricultural college lands, estimat- 
ing such bonds at their par value; and hereafter whenever 
any of the remaining agricultural college lands shall be sold, 
amounting to five thousand dollars, and the proceeds of the 
sale thereof paid into state treasury, a similar certificate of 
indebtedness shall be issued bearing interest at the rate of 
5 per cent per annum, payable semi-annually and held in 
trust by the state as part of the "Seminary fund." 

Sec. 2. Sa'd certificates of indebtedness shall be signed 
by the governor, countersigned by the secretary of state and 
sealed with, the great seal of the state; shall be non-nego- 
tiable and shall be sacredly held and preserved in the State 
Treasury as part of the permanent seminary fund of the 
state. 

Hereafter, when any money shall be paid into the state 
treasury, from whatever source derived, whether by grant, 
gift, devise, or from any other source, to be added to either 
the "public school fund" or the ''seminary fund" of the 
state, and when the same shall amount to one thousand 
dollars, the said board of fund commissioners shall issue a 
certificate of indebtedness of the State of Missouri like 
that provided for in section one and two of this act, and in 
accordance with the terms of the gift, grant or devise mak- 
ing additions to the public school fund or seminary fund of 
the state, except in cases where moneys are required by 
special gift or devise, providing said fund for public educa- 
tional purposes, under article eleven of the constitution of 
this state and an act approved March 16, 1881, entitled 
"An act to encourage and increase the public school fund 
of the state by grant, gift or devise, as provided for in 
section six (6) article eleven (11) of the constitution of 
Missouri, and to provide for its safe and permanent in- 
vestment." 

Sec. 4. The certificate of indebtedness authorized to be 
issued under this act to the permanent public school or 
seminary fund of the state shall specify the purpose for 
which said funds are dedicated, the source from which de- 
rived, and the disposition of the interest to be paid on the 
same; they shall be printed on good parchment paper, and 
shall be and remain sacred, irrevocable obligations of the 
state, unconvertible and untransferable, for the purpose of 
their issue as so much of the permanent "Public School 
fund" or "Seminary fund," the interest thereon to be ap- 
propriated regularly in accordance with the terms of said 
certificates, and to commence running from the date of de- 
livery of said Missouri state bonds or the payment of the 
money into the treasury of the state. 

Sec. 5. All Interest due upon the bonds herein referred to 
down to the date of their surrender or delivery shall be paid 
over to the treasurer of the board of curators of the Uni- 
versity of the State of Missouri, and one-fourth of the inter- 



SCHOOL FUND INVESTMENT VOID. 

est thus collected shall be paid by him to the treasurer of the 
School of Mines at Rolla, according to law. 

Sec. 6. All bonds of the State of Missouri, referred to in 
this act, shall be delivered to the state auditor, and as soon 
as the certificates contemplated to be issued in lieu thereof 
shall be delivered to the state treasurer, the state auditor 
shall proceed, in the presence of the board of fund commis- 
sioners, to cancel the same and all interest coupons thereto 
attached, by punching, and he shall preserve the same in 
the scrap-book bond register kept in his office. 

Sec. 7. The State of Missouri is hereby constituted the 
custodian and is made the trustee of all moneys which may 
be paid into the state treasury under this act, and of the 
certificates of indebtedness which may be issued under the 
same, and the honor and good faith of the state is hereby 
pledged for the faithful performance of the trust herein 
created. 

Approved March 31, 1883. 

If there ever was any doubt as to the violation of 
the constitution of 1875 by the enactment of the acts 
heretofore quoted by Democratic legislatures, it was 
certainly dispelled by the Democratic general assem- 
bly of 1901, when it passed the following amendment 
to the constitution of 1875, to be submitted to the 
people at the general election in November, 1902: 

SENATE JOINT AND CONCURRENT RESOLUTION sub- 
mitting to the qualified voters of Missouri an amend- 
ment to the constitution thereof to define the status 
of the state certificates of indebtedness now on deposit 
In the state treasury and held in trust for the "pub- 
lic school fund" and the "seminary fund;" to extend 
and perpetuate the same; to provide for the payment 
of the interest thereon; and to provide for the future 
investment of school and seminary funds. 

Be it resolved by the Senate, the House of Repre- 
sentatives concurring therein, as follows: 
That at the general election to be held on the Tues- 
day next following the first Monday in November, 
1902, the following amendment to the constitution of 
Missouri shall be submitted to the qualified voters of 
said state, to wit: That article X of the constitution 
of the state of Missouri be amended by adding there- 
to a new section, to be known as section twenty-six 
(26), as follows: 

Section 26. ALL CERTIFICATES OF INDEBTEDNESS 
OF THE STATE TO THE "PUBLIC SCHOOL FUND" AND 
TO THE "SEMINARY FUND" ARE HEREBY CONFIRM- 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

ED AS SACRED OBLIGATIONS OF THE STATE TO 
SAID FUNDS and they shall be renewed as they mature 
for such period of time and at such rate of interest as may 
be provided for by law. The general assembly shall have 
the power to provide by law for issuing certificates to the 
public school fund and seminary fund as the money be- 
longing to said funds accumulates in the state treasury : 
Provided, that after the outstanding bonded indebtedness 
has been extinguished, all money accumulating in the 
state treasury for above named purposes shall be in- 
vested in registered county, municipal, or school district 
bonds of this state of not less than par value. Whenever 
the state bonded debt is extinguished or a sum sufficient 
therefor has been received, there shall be levied and col- 
lected in lieu of the ten cents on the one hundred dollars 
valuation now provided for by the statutes, an annual tax 
not to exceed three cents on the one hundred dollars 
valuation to pay the accruing interest on all the certifi- 
cates of indebtedness, the proceeds of which tax shall be 
paid into the state treasury and appropriated and paid 
out for the specific purposes herein mentioned. 
Approved March 18, 1901. 

BONDS AND DEBT CERTIFICATES. 

Speaking of the violation of the constitution of 
1875 by democratic legislatures, as proved heretofore 
by the session acts, former Gov. Henry C. Brok- 
meyer said, in the State Republican: 

"Of course, you will not make the mistake of en- 
tertaining an argument as to the policy of a legisla- 
tive act, when the question at issue is the constitu- 
tional power of the legislative body to perform that 
act. In the case under consideration, the people have 
directed how they want their money invested 
namely, 'in the bonds of the state of Missouri, or 
of the United States' — and it is not for the agent 
no matter by what title known, to question, but to 
obey, especially when he has registered a sacred oath 
so to do. 

"The suggestion of Mr. Allen that, after all, certifi- 
cate of indebtedness and bond are so nearly the same 

40 



SCHOOL FUND INVESTMENT VOID. 

that there is no essential difference between them — 
might well elicit the question, why do they go to the 
trouble to substitute the one for the other? Why 
not leave the assets of the fund in the shape into 
which they had been put, in literal obedience to the 
behest of the people? But, in truth and fact, Mr. 
Allen can readily convince himself of the sophistical 
character of his suggestion by the simple experiment 
of presenting the two instruments in the market, 
where the bond will command cash and the certifi- 
cates nothing. 

"Nor are we to regard this difference as unessential 
in the affairs of the people, whether they have in their 
possession, and ready at hand, in any emergency, 
the cash, or they have no available resources ready 
for present use. For, although the people have set 
apart this hoard for the education of their children, 
still emergencies may arise — as some of us know by 
sad experience — that this purpose, sacred as it is, 
has to yield to a higher. For before children can be 
educated, they must exist, and the protection of life 
takes precedence of every duty of government." 

The motive and consequences of the violation of 
the constitution by democratic legislatures in the con- 
version of school fund assets into liabilities, will be 
explained hereafter in this book. 



ALLEN'S REVIEW OF THE SCHOOL FUND. 



State Auditor's and Gov. Dockery's Absurd Contention 
as to Debt Certificates. 



In a public utterance, as reported by a special cor- 
respondent of the Globe-Democrat, under date of No- 
vember 8, 1901, Gov. Dockery employed the following 
.somewhat equivocal language: 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

"To the People of Missouri: I invite attention to the 
report of Auditor Allen, which concisely, and yet in 
sufficient detail, reviews the management of our pub- 
lic school fund since January 1, 1865. The auditor's 
statement is so comprehensive that but little remains 
to be said by me." 

A correspondent, signing himself "An Old Green- 
horn," had the following to say in the State Repub- 
lican on Gov. Dockery's utterance: 

How is this? Are we to understand that you— Dr. 
Dockery, of Daviess, and Capt. A. O. Allen, of New 
Madrid — have stewed together a mess of assertions 
to prove that a certificate of indebtedness issued to 
one of the state trust funds is the same in law and fact 
as a coupon bond of the state of Missouri; and that 
you, Mr. Dockery, because you happen to be governor, 
invite over your official signature attention to this 
compound under the title of "a report from Auditor 
Allen?" You, as governor, attest this as an official 
document by your signature, and then add "that it is 
so comprehensive that but little remains to be said 
by you." Are the official reports required to be made 
under the law by the auditor, treasurer, secretary of 
state and other subordinate officers, subject cO be 
amplified by you? If this is an auditor's report, 
where is your authority to amplify, amend, or to cor- 
rect, even, to the extent of one word? If it is not an 
auditor's report, then where is your authority, nay, 
where is the propriety and good faith even to invite 
public attention to it, as such, over your signature 
as governor? 

You, as Dr. Dockery, of Daviess, have a perfect 
right to enter into any controversy you please, and 
to maintain any absurdity, however ridiculous, either 
in law, physics or theology, but we protest against 
the signature of the high office which you occupy 

42 



SCHOOL FUND INVESTMENT VOID. 

being employed to bolster such private contention, 
and we do this in behalf of your own honor. 

Do you hold the people of Missouri, whose attention 
you invite, so stupid as not to be able to distinguish 
between an official document and the rigmarole of a 
person in office — the authority and respect attached 
to the one and the destination of such authority by 
the other? If such is the estimate you place upon us, 
pray what is the honor to be governor of such a 
gullible crowd? 

We, the people of Missouri, placed into your hands 
certain assets and told you to "invest them in the 
bonds of the # state of Missouri or of the United States." 
Did you do as you were told? 

"No!" 

"Why not?" 

"Because we were afraid our fellows would steel 
them, or permit others to." 

"Well, what did you do with them?" 

"We destroyed them." 

"You did?" 

"Yes." 

"And then used a certificate in their stead not 
worth stealing?" 

"Who authorized you to do this?" 

"Nobody, but we thought — " 

"Yes, you thought that you could make us believe 
that a thing not worth stealing is the same as a 
thing worth millions of dollars in the open market 
of the world, by simply calling a rigmarole of 
gratuitous assertions to that effect official documents 
over your signature as governor. But we entrusted 
you with that signature, not for the purpose that 
you might palm off on us rigmaroles of persons in 
office which you can amplify as official documents, 
but to be employed to avouch the faith of the state 
with open candor and truthfulness." 

43 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 
BONDS AND DEBT CERTIFICATES. 



Democratic State Platform of 1900 Lied — School Fund 
$973.40. 



The "little" that his excellency found remaining 
to be said by him in amplification of the "auditor's 
report" upon the management of the public school 
fund for the last 45 years starts off with this re- 
mark: 

"The form of investment of the school funds was 
changed under the several acts to which he (the 
auditor) has referred, from the bond form of indebt- 
edness to the certificate form of indebtedness. Both 
forms of indebtedness are in contemplation of the 
constitution bond forms of liability, and the ques- 
tion naturally arises why the state should have ex- 
changed from the one form to the other." 

This statement, if true, however little it may add 
to the "auditor's report," is all-sufficient for the ques- 
tion at issue. If it is true, as alleged, that "both 
forms of indebtedness are in contemplation of the 
constitution bond forms of obligation," then it fol- 
lows, as a matter of course, that in that same con- 
templation of the constitution there was no change 
of the investment of the assets of the school fund, 
and all inquiry as to the constitutionality of *such a 
transaction is more than idle — it is absurd. 

But we are also informed by the sentence preceding 
the one that contains this assertion that notwithstand- 
ing this identity of the two forms there actually was 
a change. It is this peculiarity of the "little" that 
his excellency found to add to the report of the 
auditor — that there was and there was not a change 
at one and the same time of the assets of the school 

44 



SCHOOL FUND INVESTMENT VOID. 

fund — that makes it necessary for us to look a little 
further into this subject. 

Nor can we be deterred from this by the fact that 
no political party has ever mentioned the subject in 
a convention, deeming it, as we do, not merely the 
privilege, but the solemn duty of every citizen, how- 
ever humble he may be, to keep himself informed 
in regard to public affairs, and also to add his mite 
to the information of the public to the extent of his 
ability. 

Besides, while his excellency seems to claim the 
calling of public attention to public affairs, as the 
exclusive prerogative of party conventions, he ought 
to remember that the discussion of this subject grew 
out of the claim, by the party that nominated him, in 
solemn convention assembled, that they had reduced 
the debt of the state "until only $2,637,000 remained 
to be paid." It was this statement, presented to the 
public with all the solemnity which his excellency 
seems to require, that was called in question by the 
editor of the State Republican, in a speech at Galla- 
tin, Mo., Dockery's own town, during the last cam- 
paign. He showed, or attempted to show, that this 
claim was not true and could not be true, according 
to the evidence of the public documents in the hands 
of the people, furnished by that very party itself, 
unless they intended to repudiate their obligations to 
the public school fund of the state. Gov. Dockery 
will remember that neither he nor his party claimed 
at the time "that certificate and bond were in con- 
templation of the constitution bond forms of obli- 
gation," for if they or he had so claimed, what would 
have become of their other claim "that only $2,637,000 
remains to be paid," when in truth and fact the sum 
would have amounted to $7,034,294.83. 

It is, therefore, evident that even if his excellency's 
claim of exclusive prerogative on behalf of party con- 

45 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

ventions be allowed, still, even in that case, the in- 
truder could not, in common fairness, be charged 
with impertinence or arrogance and denied a further 
hearing. It was the convention that nominated Mr. 
Dockery that lied in its platform, and the extent of 
the editor's offense was that he did not believe that 
lie, nor intend that it should mislead the public un- 
challenged. 

Nor is he to be deterred by this afterthought of 
his excellency that "in contemplation of the consti- 
tution" there was no change in the investment of the 
assets of the school fund, however clearly that con- 
templation may be in contradiction of his own party 
platform when it states the sum total of the bonded 
indebtedness still to be paid at $2,637,000; for, in fair- 
ness to the democratic party, it ought to be reminded 
that it could not know at that time what its candi- 
date's contemplation might make of the constitution 
a whole year afterward. All they claimed was that 
they had reduced a debt of $21,788,000 to $2,637,000 
by economic administration of public affairs. They 
could not know that their candidate, when drawn in 
a corner by the question: "What became of the assets 
of the school fund?'' would deem it the shortest way 
out to say that it had been merged with the bonded 
debt of the state, and that in contemplation of the 
constitution, the convention either did not know what 
it was talking about, or did not care; that in point of 
fact, the bonded debt consisted, at the time the con- 
vention spoke, of $7,034,294.53, instead of $2,637,000; 
that the bonded debt was not reduced to $2,637,000 by 
economic administration of public affairs, but by tak- 
ing $4,397,294.53, minus $3,445.96, out of the school 
and seminary funds, leaving a deficit in these two 
funds, as witnessed by certificates of indebtedness, 
of $4,393,539.43. 

46 



SCHOOL FUND INVESTMENT VOID. 

Now, whoever may be correct in this contention 
between the convention and its creature, his present 
excellency, one thing, the editor believes, is perfectly 
correct, and that is that the present assets of the 
state school fund consist not of $3,158,937.40, but of 
the magnificent sum of $973.40 in the currency of 
the realm, and a deficit of $3,150,000, and this, we be 
lieve, not because the present auditor says so in his 
statement, vouched for by Chicago and New York 
experts, but because the democratic general assembly 
did, in the year of our Lord, 1901, submit an amend- 
ment to the constitution asking the people to vote 
upon themselves a tax of three cents on the $100 to 
make good this deficit. For the same reason we do 
also believe that the assets of the seminary fund 
consist not of the sum of $1,238,321.48, but of the sum 
of $2,482.06, and evidences of a deficit for the balance 
—that is, for $1,235,839.42. While we believe this for 
the reason stated, we do not believe that the deficits 
in the assets of the school and seminary funds 
amounting to $4,393,589.43, were used to redeem bonds 
of the state, or in the reduction of the bonded debt 
of the state; nor that the funds ever had assets con- 
sisting in bonds of the state to that amount, and for 
this belief we have nothing to offer but the state- 
ment of the present auditor, vouched for, of course, 
as stated above, and the act of March 31, 1883. 



47 



DOCKERY-ALLEN-EXPERT EXHIBIT. 



STATE DEBT INCREASED $1,132,720 BY DEMO- 

(RATS IN VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 

' BY THEIR OWN RECORD. 



That Amount of Debt Certificates in Excess of What 
Sinking Received From School Fund. 



TNT OTHER WORDS, OVER SI, 133,000 SCHOOL FUND 
ASSETS WERE NOT USED TO CANCEL STATE BONDS. 



Constitutional Violations by the Executive Department of 
the State Government. 



The Executive Department of the state government 
consists, under the constitution, of a governor, lieu- 
tenant governor, secretary of state, state auditor, 
state treasurer, attorney general and superintendent 
of public schools. When inducted into office the sev- 
eral members of the executive department named take 
an oath to support the constitution. The organic law 
of the state also requires that they shall make "under 
oath" semi-annual reports of "all moneys and choses 
in action disbursed, or otherwise disposed of by 
them," to the governor. The constitution makes it 
perjury to violate an oath of office or to make a 
false official report. (See sec. 22, art. 5.) 

The constitution of Missouri does not provide that 
a record of the financial transactions of the state 
shall be made, kept or passed upon by New York or 
Chicago "experts," employed without the authority of 
law by the governor of Missouri. The constitution, 
however, does prescribe such- regulations governing 

48 



DOCKERY-ALLEN-EXPERT EXHIBIT. 

the receipt and expenditure of public moneys that 
not one dollar can be paid out of the state treasury 
except upon a warrant signed by the state auditor. 
Therefore, if the constitution is obeyed, the auditor's 
reports will contain a full and complete record of all 
the financial transactions of the state government. 
Any record short of this is a false report and a viola- 
tion of the constitution. 

It seems, however, that the all-wise Governor A. 
M. Doekery declares over his signature, in a docu- 
ment entitled "Missouri Finances," or "Complete Ex- 
hibit" of receipts and disbursements of public moneys, 
by the Dockery-Allen-New York-Chicago expert firm, 
that "state auditors' reports do not include all of the 
state's financial transactions" and that "this must 
be apparent to the merest tyro in bookkeeping." (See 
page 30, "Missouri Finances," Nov. 2, 1901.) 

DOCKERY-ALLEN-EXPERT REPORT. 

Passing over this revelation and Mr. Dockery's con- 
viction of the state auditor for the moment, turn 
to page 36, same public document, prepared and pub- 
lished under oath. The State Republican some time 
ago expressed the editor's belief that the amount of 
money due to the school and seminary funds is cor- 
rectly stated so far as the face of the auditor's books 
are concerned, because the people are asked to tax 
themselves to pay these amounts by the constitutional 
amendment now pending for ratification; but he also 
stated that he did not believe that these funds, school 
and seminary, ever held securities or moneys to that 
amount, the cancellation and acceptance of which 
justified this demand, and that for this want of faith 
he had no further evidence than the say-so of Capt. 
A. O. Allen, of New Madrid. The say-so of Mr. Allen 
referred to occurs in his recent utterance, variously 
designated by his excellency as a report, review or 

49 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

statement, under the head-line, "Bonded debt reduced 
by transfer to sinking fund." (See page 35, "Missouri 
Finances.") 

He says "no state bonds have been taken up under 
the act of March 21, 1883, and it is proper to explain 
that while this act does not require the school and 
seminary fund moneys, for which certificates of in- 
debtedness are issued, to be placed in the sinking 
fund and used for the reduction of the bonded debt, 
it has evidently been the settled policy of the various 
administrations since the passage and approval of 
the act not to issue certificates in excess of the amount 
of money transferred from the school fund, seminary 
fund or revenue fund to the sinking fund to pay off 
bonds so that the state debt be not increased in vio- 
lation of the constitution. An inspection of the books 
of this department shows that the following sums of 
money have been transferred from the funds just 
mentioned to the sinking fund and used for the reduc- 
tion of the bonded debt since the passage of the 
act of March 31, 1883: 

From the revenue fund $ 568,000 00 

From the school fund 225,000 00 

From the seminary fund 674,958 23 

Total amount transferred to sinking fund. $1,467,958 23 

According to these figures the sum total transferred 
from the school and seminary funds to the sinking 
fund is $899,958.23. It will be noticed that this 
covers the period from March 31, 1883, to January 1, 
1901. During this period Mr. Allen informs us after- 
wards that certificates of indebtedness were issued 
as follows: 



50 



DOCKERY-ALLEN-EXPERT EXHIBIT. 

To the school fund $ 249,000 00 

To the seminary fund 444,000 00 

To the seminary fund , 646,958 23 

To the seminary fund . 22,881 19 

Sum total for which certificates were is- 
sued to these two funds $1,362,839 42 

Deduct assets alleged to have been re- 
ceived from the school and seminary 
funds 899,958 23 

And we have left as the amount for which 
certificates were issued to these funds 
in excess of what they were entitled 
to $ 462,88119 

DEBT INCREASED $1,132,720. 

But this is not all. Mr. Allen also states "that the 
only certificates to the seminary fund not issued to 
the seminary fund under the act referred to (the 
act of March 31, 1883) were two, one for $646,958.23, 
under the act of March 26, 1891, providing that the 
direct tax money refunded by the United States (to 
the State of Missouri) be placed to the credit of the 
seminary fund and a certificate of indebtedness be 
issued therefor; and the other for $22,881.19, under 
the act of April 2, 1895, entitled: "An act to restore 
to the seminary fund the expenses incurred in the 
superintendence and sale of the lands disposed of for 
the benefit of said fund and the distribution of the 
proceeds of said sale." 

As the time when these certificates were issued 
falls within the period covered by the operation of 
the transfers of the assets of the funds, school and 
seminary, to the sinking fund, that is, between March 
31, 1883, and January 1, 1901, we are bound to regard 
these two items as included in the sum of assets, 
$899,958.23, transferred from these funds to the sink- 
ing fund during that period, and the question arises: 

51 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

In what manner did the $646,958.23 become an asset 
of the sinking fund and chargeable as derived or 
transferred from the seminary fund? 

The $646,958.19 was money in the treasury collected 
from the United States for direct taxes paid by the 
citizens of Missouri. The issuing of a certificate of 
indebtedness for this amount was, therefore, a direct, 
gratuitous gift to the seminary fund, or state uni- 
versity, and not a conversion of assets of that fund 
from one form to another. So the certificate for $22,- 
881.19 was in discharge of a claim for the expenses of 
the management of the fund, which when allowed 
was chargeable, as current expenses of the govern- 
ment, to the revenue fund, and the issuance of a 
certificate for this amount is the issuance of a certifi- 
cate of indebtedness for that amount of the current 
expenses of the state government. 

The presenting of these two amounts as assets of 
the seminary fund, available for the payment of 
"bonded debt," is, therefore, a subterfuge well cal- 
culated to cover up the real character of the tranac- 
tion. But the $646,958.23 was money in the treasury 
available to pay bonds without the issuance of a cer- 
tificate of indebtedness therefor, and when the gen- 
eral assembly ordered that this money should be 
credited to the seminary fund, it neither received nor 
pretended to receive anything in return for that 
money from that fund, and when it ordered a certifi- 
cate of indebtedness to be issued for this gift, it 
amounted to nothing more than the borrowing back 
the state's own money — or a free gift of a certificate 
of indebtedness to the seminary fund, and the means 
of the state to pay bonded debt remained the same 
that they were before the transaction. 

Again, the $22,281.19 could only become a legitimate 
asset of the seminary fund when paid out of the 
revenue fund. As there is not even an allegation to 

52 



DOOKBRY- ALLEN-EXPERT EXHIBIT. 

this effect, it could not legitimately figure in the 
question: "What was the amount of assets received 
from, and what the amount for which certificates of 
indebtedness were issued to these funds? Hence, to 
arrive at a true result, we have to deduct the aggre- 
gate of these two items, namely, the $646,958.23 and 
the $22,851.19, from the total amount of assets alleged 
to have been transferred to the sinking fund from the 
school and seminary funds, thus: 
Transferred from school and seminary to 

sinking fund $ 899,958 23 

Certificates issued to seminary fund 669,839 42 

True amount of assets transferred from 
school and seminary funds to sinking 
fund $ 230,118 81 

Total certificates of indebtedness issued.. $1,362,839 42 
True amount of assets transferred to sink- 
ing fund from school and seminary 
funds 230,118 81 



Excess of certificates issued over amount 
of assets derived from school and 

seminary funds for sinking fund $1,132,720 61 

• In other words, the bonded debt of the state has 
been increased in violation of the constitution to the 
amount of $1,132,720.61, according to the report fur- 
nished the people under oath by Mr. Allen, indorsed 
and vouched for by his excellency, Mr. Dockery. Of 
course, in view of these figures furnished by Mr. 
Allen, we could not believe that the means to pay 
state bonds, whether by transfer to the sinking funds 
or in any other manner, obtained from the school and 
seminary funds were equal in amount to the certifi- 
cates of indebtedness alleged to have been issued 
for this means by Mr. Allen. 

Will Alexander M. Dockery, Capt. A. O. Alien or 
the New York-Chicago experts explain the foregoing 
item that is in the state auditor's report? 
53 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

MR. DOCKERY'S AMAZING INNOCENCE. 



What the Constitution and Statutes Provide as to "Au- 
ditor's Reports" and What Missouri's Governor 
Does Not Know. 



The people of Missouri have been under the im- 
pression for some years that they employed a person 
called "auditor of state," whose special duty it is to 
keep account of the financial operations of their gov- 
ernment and to report to them from time to time 
the results. They prohibited the disbursement of 
a single dollar of their public moneys without his 
knowledge and special written consent — his warrant; 
and they required of him to' make reports of these 
transactions: 

First, to the governor; second, to the general assem- 
bly, and third, to themselves; to the governor month- 
ly and as often as he may require; to the general as- 
sembly, "at the commencement of each regular ses- 
sion," and to the people themselves, annually, or once 
a year (Sec. 10,385, R. S„ 1899). 

They supply him with such material and assistance 
as he may require, and have rested secure in the be- 
lief that they have provided themselves and their 
representatives, both legislative and executive, with 
a source of information in regard to the financial 
affairs of the state at once authentic and reliable. 
This belief was entertained and this impression pre- 
vailed ever since the people organfzed a government 
of their own. 

And now comes A. M. Dockery, in the year of our 
Lord, A. D. 1901, and says, over his own signature 
as governor, that any tyro in bookkeeping ought to 
know "that these reports (of the state auditor) do 
not include all of the state's financial operations." 

54 



DOCKERY-ALLEN-EXPERT EXHIBIT. 

Of course, what a tyro in bookkeeping ought or 
ought not to know, or what he might be reasonably 
expected to know, are questions of a purely specula- 
tive nature — a little or no concern to the people at 
large; but in view of the prevailing impression above 
mentioned, it would, be of decided interest to find out 
what financial operations of the state there were, 
are or can be that do not involve receipts into or 
disbursements from the state treasury. 

THE PEOPLE'S LAW. 

The people have provided both by organic and 
statutory law: 

First, "that all revenue collected or money received 
by the state from any source whatever shall go into 
the treasury." 

Second, "that no money shall be drawn from the 
treasury except in pursuance of regular appropria- 
tions made by law." 

Third, "upon warrants drawn by the state auditor, 
and not otherwise." 

Now, if all the money received by the state from 
any source whatever shall go into the treasury, and 
no money shall go out of that treasury except upon 
an appropriation by law and on auditor's warrants, 
and the auditor is required, as he is by law (see act 
above cited), "to publish annually an accurate ac- 
count of all receipts and expenditures of public 
moneys," then the question arises: What is the char- 
acter of the state's financial operations that can be 
omitted from the auditor's reports without violation 
of law? 

Again, if the financial operations of the state, re- 
ferred to, are of a character that they do not affect 
the operations of the state treasury one way or an- 

55 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

other, and may thus be omitted from the auditor's 
reports without violation of law, pray, what relevancy 
have they to the question at issue — namely, the re- 
liability, the trustworthiness of the information fur- 
nished to the people concerning their financial affairs 
by the official reports emanating from the state au- 
ditor's office? 

Now, if the assertion of Mr. Dockery, that any tyro 
in bookkeeping ought to know that the "auditor's 
reports" do not include all of the state's financial 
operations, means anything in relation to this question 
beyond an idle assertion, it must mean that the in- 
formation conveyed by these reports to the people 
and their representatives, both legislative and execu- 
tive, is insufficient because incomplete, its validity is 
impeached, the people's confidence so long reposed in 
this source of information is destroyed, and there is 
nothing left for their political guidance except Mr. 
A. M. Dockery's say-so! 



56 



STATE FUNDS MISAPPROPRIATED. 



INTEREST FUND MISUSED IN PAYMENT OF IN- 

TEREST ON UNCONSTITUTIONAL DEBT 

CERTIFICATES. 



State Bonded Debt Perpetuated Indefinitely as Well as 
Two-Fifths of State Tax. 



School Fund Contains $973.40 in View of the Proposed 
Constitutional Amendment. 



The controversy between official documents on the 
one side and partisan assertions on the other has 
•enabled the editor to present the proof of the correct- 
ness of the position heretofore assumed by the State 
Republican, that the party in power has misappro- 
priated the trust funds placed in its charge during 
the last twenty-five years. Of course, the state fiscal 
officers, including the fund commissioners, as well as 
the legislature, are proved guilty by the official 
records. 

In a statement signed by A. *M. Dockery, governor, 
that appeared in the State Republican of November, 
8, 1901, there occurs the following item: 

"Interest on school and seminary certificates, $4,970, 
436.27." 

This amount is alleged to have been paid out of 
the state interest fund during the thirty years ending- 
December 31, 1900. The fund here referred to was 
practically created by section 14, article 11, of the 
constitution of 1875, which reads as follows: 

' 'The tax authorized by the sixth section of the ordinance 
adopted June 6, 1865, is hereby abolished; and hereafter 

57 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

there shall be levied and collected an annual tax sufficient 
to pay the accruing interest upon the bonded debt of the 
state, and to reduce the principal thereof each year by a 
sum not less than $250 000, the proceeds of which tax 
shall be paid into the state treasury and appropriated and 
paid out for the purposes expressed in the first and 
second subdivision of section 43, article 4, of this consti- 
tution. The funds and resources now in the state interest 
and sinking funds shall be appropriated to the same pur- 
pose, and whenever said debt is extinguished, or a sum 
sufficient therefor has been raised, the tax provided 
for in this section shall cease to be assessed." 

First and second subdivision of section 43, article 
4, referred to above, reads as follows: 

"First— For the payment of all interest upon the bonded 
debt of the state that may become due during the term 
for which each general assembly is elected." 

"Second— For the benefit of the sinking fund, which 
shall not be less annually than $250,000." 

In addition to this we find section 8 in the lan- 
guage following: 

' 'Until the general assembly shaU make provision for 
the payment of the state and railroad indebtedness of the 
state, in pursuance of section 14, article 10, of this 
constitution, there shall be levied and collected an annual 
tax of one-fifth of one per centum on all real estate and 
other property and effects, subject to taxation, the pro- 
ceeds of which shall be applied to the payment of the 
interest on the bonded debt of this state, as it matures, 
and the surplus, if any, shall be paid into the sinking 
fund, and thereafter applied to the payment of such in- 
debtedness and to no other purpose." 

By these several provisions the people of Missouri 
authorize the levying of a tax upon themselves for a 
specific purpose, namely, for the payment of interest 
and principal of the bonded debt of the state, and for 
no oth6r. They also provide, explicitly, that the atithor- 
ity to levy this tax shall cease as soon as this purpose is 
accomplished, "or a sum sufficient therefor has been 
raised." 



STATE FUNDS MISAPPROPRIATED. 

Of course, it requires no argument to show that the use 
of this money for some other purpose than the one here 
so definitely expressed, such as the payment of interest 
upon school certificates of indebtedness, is a misappro- 
priation ; nor yet, that the effect of this misappropriation 
is to prolong- the time that the people will be subject to 
this tax. 

In other words, the people are paying 1 cents on the 
$100 valuation, have paid it for years and will continue 
to pay it indefinitely in the face of the direct and explicit 
command in their own constitution, that "this tax shall 
cease to be assessed whenever said debt (state bonded) 
is extinguished," which would have been done many 
years ago if the interest tax had been honestly applied 
to the purpose for which the people in their constitution 
created it, and to no other. 



GOV. DOCKERY'S "MISTAKES. 



The Taxpayer's Dilemma When the Auditor's Books 
are Untrustworthy. 

In a speech at Macon, while the controversy over 
the auditor's reports and alleged "discrepancies" was 
pending, Governor Dockery admitted that Democratic 
state administrations had made mistakes. Referring 
to these "mistakes/' a Macon "taxpayer," writing in 
the State Republican under date of October 23, said: 

"I made a miss-take!" as the pickpocket said when 
his hand was caught in another man's pocket. "No, 
you didn't, for I caught you at it; but you intended 
to, no doubt!" 

"We have made miss-takes in the records of our 
transactions, but the transactions themselves are all 
right." How do you know? From memory? 

"We made miss-takes by putting the people's money 
in the wrong pocket; that is all. But we did it 
honestly!" 

59 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

"We made mistakes." Yes, some few. (See the 
record of the general assembly during the last 17 
years, on preceding pages of the State Republican 
Campaign Book.) 

"We made mistakes, but then the people will con- 
tinue to pay ten cents on the hundred dollars, from 
year to year, until our miss-takes are made good." 

"We made miss-takes in the books!" And how are 
you — how are we, the people — to find out among other 
matters, when the constitutional tax of ten cents 
on the hundred dollars ceases to be a lawful ono, 
ceases to be constitutional, and becomes unconstitu- 
tional? The language of that instrument is: 

And whenever said bonded debt is extinguished, or a sum 
sufficient therefore has been raised, the tax provided for in 
this section shall cease to be assessed. (Sec. 14, art. 10.) 

"We know the bonds are not as yet paid, but what 
about the alternative condition? Has 'a sufficient 
sum sufficient therefor been raised?' The books 
alone can answer this question, and as they are un- 
trustworthy, what is your recollection about this? 
The public knows that your actions evinced consid- 
erable attention to the public affairs of the state dur- 
ing the 16 years next preceding your election, so- 
ealled — that is, your being counted into the office of 
governor by the non-contestable Stephens-Nesbit ma- 
chine, the crank of which you placed in the hands of 
James J. Seibert. This act alone would show that 
you kept track of things at home, although a thou- 
sand miles away, serving the people by drawing your 
pay with the utmost regularity from the national 
treasury. Still, whether your duties in that connec- 
tion permitted you to keep your eye on things in 
Missouri close enough to justify us in substi hating 
your recollections for a properly-kept set of books, 
such as the people have provided for in their con- 
stitution and laws, and paid for out of their pockets. 

60 



STATE FUNDS MISAPPROPRIATED. 

must in all fairness admit of question by those citi- 
zens who were on the spot, heard and saw what 
was going on from day to day. Nay, they remember 
that during the very period in question, when these 
mistakes were made, the persons then in charge of 
the state government themselves deemed it necessary 
to perform the ancient Jewish rite of sending a scape- 
goat into the wilderness. This ceremony, of course, 
evinced a consciousness of sin, and is in direct con- 
tradition of your recollection — "We made mistakes, 
but did not steal." You will, therefore, see the diffi- 
culty of the citizens in accepting your recollections in 
regard to the important question — 'When does the 
tax of ten cents on the hundred dollars cease?" 



MISUSE OF STATE TRUST EU1VDS. 



AUDITORS' REPORTS SHOW COSTLY JUGGLING 
OF PEOPLE'S MONEY IN VIOLATION OF LAW. 



Revenue and Interest Funds Applied Indiscrimin- 
ately and People's Pnrpose and Will Defeated. 



Bonded Debt Perpetuated Together With Two-Fifths of 
State Tax to Pay Interest and Principal. 



Misuse or misapplication of state trust funds, 
created for a specific purpose and no other by the 
constitution, when the act of a state official who is a 
member of the executive department of the state 
government, is a direct violation of the constitution, 
which such official is sworn to obey in the discharge 
of his duties. 

The last State Republican Campaign Book (pages 

20 and 61 to 75) contained proof of the "juggling of 

the several special funds in the state treasury, made 

sacred and inviolate by the constitution for purposes 

other than prescribed by the constitution." This 

proof is reproduced in this book in the following 

paragraphs, prepared by John T. Clarke, of Jefferson 

City: 

STATE REVENUE FUND. 

Section 8 of article 10 of the state constitution pro- 
vides as follows: 

"The state tax on property, EXCLUSIVE OF THE 
TAX NECESSARY TO PAY THE BONDED DEBT 
OF THE STATE, shall not exceed 20 cents on the 
$100 valuation; and whenever the taxable property 
of the state shall amount to $900,000,000, the rate shall 
not exceed 15 cents." 

62 



MISUSE OF STATE FUNDS. 

The assessed valuation of real estate and personal 
property has for years largely exceeded $900,000,000, 
and consequently the state revenue tax now levied 
and collected is 15 cents on $100 valuation. 

The proceeds derived from this tax, from corpora- 
tion taxes, fees, licenses of every character and all 
moneys paid into the state treasury which are not 
required by law to be placed to the credit of some 
other fund, are credited to the state revenue fund. 

All appropriations made by the general assembly 
for current expenses of the state government are 
paid out of this fund. These appropriations include 
salaries of officers, clerks and employes; pay and 
contingent expenses of the general assembly; costs in 
criminal cases; assessing and collecting the revenue; 
construction, maintenance and repair of state institu- 
tions; contingent expenses of the various departments; 
printing, stationery and all manner of current expen- 
ses pertaining to the state government. 

No other fund in the state treasury can be LAW- 
FULLY used in paying any of these expenses. 

The condition of the state revenue fund for June, 
July and August, 1899, as shown by the monthly 
reports of the state treasurer to the governor, is sub- 
mitted as follows: 

Balances on Receipts Disbursements 

first day of during during 

the month, the month. the month. 

June $302,132 37 $141,312 30 $87,149 17 

July 356,295 50 77,329 62 

August 433,625 12 165,506 80 537,84170 

Balance Sept. 1, 1899 $61,290 22 

To the casual reader these dull figures impart no 
startling information, but to one having knowledge 
of the laws controlling disbursements from the state 
treasury they disclose an utter disregard of these 

63 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

laws and a most shameful "JUGGLING" of state 
funds. 

Now, then, we find from the treasurer's report that 
in July. 1899, not one dollar was paid out of the state 
revenue fund for any purpose whatsoever! Iu view 
of the vast and never-ceasing liabilities of the revenue 
fund that was surely a WONDERFUL REPORT. 

Were the people to be informed through this report 
that the state government was without expenses in 
July? That executive and judicial officers, clerks and 
employes were not paid their salaries in that month? 
That our educational, eleemosynary and penal institu- 
tions were maintained free of cost? That nothing- 
was paid for costs in criminal cases, for assessing and 
collecting the revenue, for printing and stationery 
and a thousand contingent expenses? Certainly not. 
Warrants were issued by the state auditor for all 
these expenses and they AVERE PAID, but in their 
PAYMENT FROM OTHER FUNDS IN THE STATE 
TREASURY, the constitution and laws of Missouri 
were trampled upon by the state treasurer. 

The treasurer's report for August is no less astonish- 
ing than that of July, for it likewise shows that in 
August, 1899, NOT ONE DOLLAR WAS DIS- 
BURSED FROM THE STATE REVENUE FUND 
for current expenses of the state. 

A disbursement of $537,841.70 is shown to have 
been made in August, but this disbursement repre- 
sented simply A TRANSFER to state school moneys 
of that sum, said transfer being a part of one-third 
of the ordinary revenue receipts appropriated by the 
general assembly for (lie support of free public 
schools. 

The report shows that the fund known as state 
school moneys was credited, in that month, with 
$537,841.70, the amount of said transfer from the 
state revenue fund. 

64 



MISUSE OF STATE FUNDS. 

By his own reports, the state treasurer stands con- 
victed of unlawfully using moneys belonging to other 
funds in cashing auditor's warrants drawn against 
the state revenue fund. 

MORE JUGGLING. 

The apportionment of state school moneys made 
July 31, 1899, to the several counties in the state of 
Missouri amounted to $923,950.36, and, as certified to 
by the state superintendent of public schools, was 
derived from the following sources: 

One-third of the ordinary receipts into the 
revenue fund from July 1, 1898, to June 

30, 1899, inclusive $737,841 70 

Interest on school fund certificates 186,090 00 

Refunded errors in enumeration by J. O. 
Welch, treasurer of Cedar county 18 66 

Total apportionment $923,950 36 

It will be observed that one-third of the receipts 
into the state revenue fund, from July 1, 1898, to June 
30, 1899, as certified to by the state superintendent of 
public schools, amounted to $737,841.70, whereas the 
amount transferred in August, as shown by the treas- 
urer's report, was $537,841.70, or $200,000 less than 
the amount that should have been transferred. 

The revenue fund had been squandered in meeting 
wilful extravagance of the fortieth general assembly, 
and, notwithstanding the treasurer had not disbursed 
a dollar from it for current expenses during the 
months of July and August, it was still short $200,000 
of the amount necessary to be transferred to state 
school moneys and had to its credit only $61,290.22 
on the first day of September. 

STATE INTEREST FUND. 

The state interest fund tax is levied for the sole 
purpose of paying interest on the bonded debt and 

65 

5 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

for the redemption of outstanding bonds. It is au- 
thorized by section 14 of article 10 of the constitution, 
which reads as follows: 

"Hereafter there shall be levied and collected an 
annual tax sufficient to pay the accruing interest upon 
the bonded debt of the state, and to reduce the prin- 
cipal thereof each year by a sum not less than $250,- 
000; the proceeds of which tax shall be paid into the 
state treasury, and appropriated and paid out for the 
purposes expressed in the first and second subdi- 
visions of section 43 of article 4 of this constitution. 
The funds and resources now in the state interest and 
state sinking funds shall be appropriated to the same 
purposes; and whenever said bonded debt is extin- 
guished, or a sum sufficient therefor has been raised, 
the tax provided for in this section SHALL CEASE 
TO BE ASSESSED." 

The purposes expressed in the first and second 
subdivisions of section 43 or article 4 referred to 
above are as follows: 

"First. For the payment of all interest upon the 
bonded debt of the state that may become due dur- 
ing the term for which each general assembly is 
elected. 

"Second. For the benefit of the state sinking fund, 
which shall not be less annually than $250,000." 

STATUTORY PROVISIONS. 

The statutory provisions concerning the state in- 
terest fund tax are the following: 

"Hereafter there shall be levied and collected an 
annual tax upon all the taxable property in the state 
of one-tenth of one percent to pay the accruing in- 
terest upon the bonded debt of the state, and to reduce 
the principal thereof each year by a sum of not less 
than $250,000, the proceeds of which tax shall be 
paid into the treasury and DISBURSED BY THE 

66 



MISUSE OP STATE FUNDS. 

AUDITOR AND TREASURER FOR THE PUR- 
POSES FOR WHICH IT WAS COLLECTED, AND 
NO OTHER, in the following order: 

"First. For the payment of all interest upon the 
bonded debt of the state as it falls due; and second, 
for the benefit of the sinking fucd, which shall not 
be less, annually, than $250,000." 

SECTION 8651, R. S. 1889. 
FAITH OF THE STATE PLEDGED. 

"The proceeds of the tax mentioned in the pre- 
ceding section * * * shall constitute and be 
known as the "Interest Fund" and the "Sinking- 
Fund, " and the general assembly hereby pledges the 
public faith of the state of Missouri that the fund 
hereby created SHALL NOT BE DIVERTED OR 
APPLIED TO ANY OTHER PURPOSE WHATSO- 
EVER until the principal and interest of all the state 
bonds SHALL BE FULLY PAID AND REDEEMED 
IN GOOD FAITH." 

SECTION 8652, R. S. 1889. 

"Any surplus remaining in the state interest fund, 
after the interest on the bonded indebtedness of the 
state for the current year shall have been fully paid, 
shall be set apart and credited to the sinking fund, 
for the payment of the bonded obligations of the 
state that are now due or may hereafter become due, 
or for the purchase of bonds of the state, AND FOR 
NO OTHER PURPOSE WHATSOEVER." 

SECTION 9654 3 11. S. 1899. 
DIVERSION OF THE INTEREST FUND. 

The wholesale diversion of moneys belonging to the 
state interest fund did not begin until 1887, during 

67 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

the administration of James M. Seibert as state 
treasurer. 

Proof of the crime may * be found in the hand- 
writing of the guilty parties and is published in 
the auditor's reports from 1887 to the present time. 

Before presenting the evidence, as found in the 
auditor's reports, bear in mind that the state levies, 
for all purposes, a tax of 25 cents on each $100 as- 
sessed valuation. Of this tax 15 cents is collected 
and paid into the state treasury for the benefit of the 
state revenue fund, and 10 cents for the payment of 
interest accruing on the public debt and for the re- 
tirement of the same. 

When, therefore, one pays state taxes on real 
estate or personal property, assessed at $1,000, he 
places to the credit of the state revenue fund $1.50, 
while $1 goes to the credit of the state interest fund. 

It follows that of all state taxes remitted by col- 
lectors to the state treasurer, two-fifths of the amounts 
so remitted should be placed to the credit of the 
state fund. 

SEIBERT' S ADMINISTRATION. 

On page 188 of the state auditor's report for 1887-88, 
we find that in May, 1887, James M. Seibert, as state 
treasurer, placed $99,043.10 to the credit of the state 
revenue fund, while the state interest fund was 
credited with only $3,403.06; in June — revenue fund 
$80,784.99, interest fund $121.09; in July— revenue 
fund $232,420.18, interest fund $711.15; in August- 
revenue fund $94,117.10, interest fund, $387.45; in 
September— revenue fund $218,869.74, interest fund 
NOTHING; in June, 1888; revenue fund $36,732.30, 
interest fund $8,547.88; in July— revenue fund $33,760.- 
58, interest fund $1,106.38; in August— revenue fund, 
$39,574.32, interest fund NOTHING; in September— 



MISUSE OF STATE FUNDS. 

revenue fund $204,750, interest fund NOTHING; in 
October— revenue fund $119,159.28, interest fund, 
NOTHING. 

ADMINISTRATION OF LON V. STEPHENS. 

March 12, 1890, by appointment of Governor Fran- 
cis, Hon. Lon V. Stephens succeeded Ed T. Noland as 
state treasurer, and in 1892 was elected to that office. 
His term as state treasurer lasted about six years 
and nine months. 

In May, 1890, Treasurer Stephens was pleased to 
credit the revenue fund with $56,821.08, and the in- 
terest fund with $3,499.98; in June— revenue fund $51,- 
083.59, interest fund NOTHING; in July— revenue 
fund $69,393.45, interest fund NOTHING; in August 
—revenue fund $80,660.36, interest fund NOTHING; 
in September — revenue fund $215,043.45, interest fund 
NOTHING. 

In May, 1891— revenue fund $50,721.66, _ interest 
fund $4,837.56; in June— revenue fund $44,845.17, in- 
terest fund $452.41; in July— revenue fund $77,057.98, 
interest fund $55.41; in August— revenue fund $111,- 
226.37, interest fund $145.52; in September— revenue 
fund $177,075.58, interest fund NOTHING; in Octo- 
ber—revenue fund $162,564.59, interest fund NOTH- 
ING. 

In May, 1892— revenue fund $51,387.82, interest 
fund $3,022.76; in June — revenue fund $41,519.85, in- 
terest fund $159.95; in July— revenue fund $68,986.64, 
interest fund $184.10; in August— revenue fund $149,- 
764.59, interest fund $168.27; in September — revenue, 
fund $135,090.14, interest fund $15.39. 

In May, 1893— revenue fund $46,990.22, interest 
fund $1,757.49; in June— revenue fund $44,984.13, in- 
terest fund $1,550.70; in July— revenue fund $59,- 
025.65, interest fund $349.23; in August— revenue fund 

69 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

$107,885.49, interest fund $12.29; in September— rev- 
enue fund $167,756.21, interest fund NOTHING; in 
October— revenue fund $170,440.23, interest fund 
NOTHING; in November— revenue fund $130,988.03, 
interest fund $3.14. 

In May, 1894— revenue fund $47,792.89, interest 
fund $1,023.38; in June— revenue fund, $40,505.21, 
interest fund $636.62; in July— revenue fund $63,051.84, 
interest fund $47.06; in August — revenue fund $117,- 
630.12, interest fund $83.15; in September-^revenue 
fund $245,187.08, interest fund $28.54; in October- 
revenue fund $170,431.48, interest fund NOTHING. 

In May, 1895— revenue fund $52,257.76, interest 
fund $5,834.20; in June— revenue fund $44,610.82, in- 
terest fund $190.62; in July— revenue fund $203,872.57, 
interest fund $219.18; in August— revenue fund $112,- 
594.31, interest fund NOTHING; in September— rev- 
enue fund $235,894.19, interest fund NOTHING; in 
October— revenue fund $137,531.53, interest fund 
NOTHING; in November— revenue fund $130,686.13, 
interest fund $10.32. 

In May, 1896— revenue fund $71,865.61, interest 
fund $1,886.78; in June— revenue fund $61,920.80, in- 
terest fund $1,403.36; in July— revenue fund $74,583.96, 
interest fund $59.89; in August — revenue fund $115,- 
934.12, interest fund $10.10; in September — revenue 
fund $218,164.55, interest fund NOTHING; in Octo- 
ber—revenue fund $75,181.05, interest fund NOTH- 
ING; in November— revenue fund $116,796.82, interest 
fund NOTHING. 

See reports of state auditor for 1889-90, page 210; 
1891-92, page 208; 1893-94, page 228, and j.895-96, pages 
241 and 245. 

ADMINISTRATION OF FRANK L. PITTS. 
In May, 1897, State Treasurer Pitts placed to the 
credit of the state revenue fund $103,341.83, and 

70 



MISUSE OF STATE FUNDS. 

credited the interest fund with $7,730.16; in June- 
revenue fund $49,506.69, interest fund $2.01; in July- 
revenue fund $110,150.68, interest fund, $1.56; in 
August— revenue fund $126,002.15, interest fund 
NOTHING; in September— revenue fund $327,578.44, 
interest fund $424.57; in October— revenue fund $110,- 
287.77, interest fund NOTHING; in November— rev- 
enue fund $112,686.23, interest fund $10.15; in Decem- 
ber—revenue fund $617,817.36, interest fund $60,000. 

In May, 1898— revenue fund $73,409.01, interest 
fund $2,920.65; in June— revenue fund $48,222.91; in- 
terest fund $2,039.27; in July— revenue fund $68,153.15, 
interest fund $436.21; in August — revenue fund $166,- 
944.59, interest fund $38.55; in September — revenue 
fund $327,400.21, interest fund NOTHING; in October 
—revenue fund $101,907.97, interest fund NOTHING; 
in November — revenue fund $117,759.87, interest fund 
NOTHING. 

See auditor's report for 1897-98, pages 212 and 216. 

GUILT CONFESSED. 

In April, 1899, in an interview published in many 
of the leading newspapers throughout the state, Gov- 
ernor Stephens made the following confession: 

"There is no reason why the state treasurer should 
be required to continually violate the law and assume 
the responsibility of paying warrants drawn upon a 
depleted fund with funds intended for other pur- 
poses. * * * I served as treasurer for seven 
years, and was compelled to technically violate the 
law often. * * * It was done by all of my 
predecessors. * * * If I were still state treas- 
urer I would pursue the same policy." 

As a matter of information, the governor's con- 
fession was wholly unnecessary, because, as shown 
above, the books of the state auditor established his 
guilt beyond a question. 

71 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

Governor Stephens not only confesses that he vio- 
lated the constitution and laws while state treasurer, 
but goes further and charges the same crime against 
all of his predecessors in office. The governor says: 

"I served as state treasurer for seven years and 
was compelled to technically violate the law often. 
* * * It was done by all of my predecessors." 

We shall attempt no defense of those who preceded 
Governor Stephens 'in the treasurer's office, but we 
do affirm that prior to 1887 there was no such bare- 
faced juggling of the state interest fund as occurred 
during his administration. 

In support of this statement, we challenge the gov- 
ernor TO NAME ONE SINGLE MONTH during the 
administration of Harvey W. Salmon, in 1873-74; of 
J. W. Mercer, in 1875-76; of Elijah Gates, in 1877- 
78-79 and 1880; and of Phil E. Chappell, in 1881-82- 
83-84, in which the state interest fund FAILED TO 
BE CREDITED WITH RECEIPTS. 

Yet the state auditor's reports show that, in less 
than seven years while Governor Stephens was 
treasurer, no less than fifteen months passed without 
a cent being placed to the credit of the state interest 
fund, and in six months it was credited with only 
?79.78! 

Governor Stephens is the first state official of Mis- 
souri who ever made a public confession that he had 
violated the constitution and laws which he had taken 
a solemn oath- to support. His seven years' continued 
juggling of the state interest fund certainly entitles 
him to whatever notoriety may attach to such con- 
fessed lawlessness. 

GREAT LOSS BY THE STATE. 

Long-continued misapplication of moneys belonging 
to the state interest fund has resulted in great loss 
to the state by reason of the fact that interest on out- 

72 



MISUSE OF STATE FUNDS. 

standing bonds has been permitted to accumulate, 
when such bonds should have been called in for re- 
demption and interest thereon stopped. 

On the first day of January, 1899, the bonded debt 
of Missouri amounted to $3,642,000. These bonds 
bear 3% per cent interest, and all of them have been 
redeemable at the pleasure of the state since January 
1. 1893. 

The monthly reports of State Treasurer Pitts, made 
to the governor in 1899, show balances in the state 
interest and state sinking fund as follows: 

June 1 $1,034,304 63 

July 1 954,264 95 

August 1 963,826 34 

September 1 997,568 29 

In addition to the balance September 1, 1899, the 
state interest fund should have received large 
amounts from the tax books of 1899 collected in 
September, October, November and December of that 
year. 

As shown by the auditor's report of 1899, page 5, 
no. bonds were redeemed until the last day of that 
year, when the number paid amounted to only $795,- 
000. 

An act approved April 12, 1899, appropriated $1,- 
500,000 for the redemption of outstanding bonds. 
From the date of that appropriation (which should 
have been made in the first days of the session) to 
January 1, 1900, the state of Missouri lost interest 
on nearly $1,000,000, because of the failure of the 
fund commissioners to use these balances in the re- 
tirement of bonds. 

Every conception of business, of official duty and of 
the public welfare demanded that every surplus dol- 
lar in the interest fund should have been used in the 
redemption of bonds LONG BEFORE, to the end that 
accruing interest thereon might cease. 

73 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

This is only ONE instance, but in it we see that 
"juggling"- of state funds not only leads to violation 
of official oaths, but to great loss of money by the 

state. 

SOME SHADY FACTS. 

It was known of all men familiar with state finan- 
ces that in the spring and summer of 1899 there was 
not a dollar in the state treasury which could be 
LAWFULLY USED in cashing warrants drawn 
against the revenue fund to pay current expenses of 
the state government. 

The public schools were entitled to one-third of all 
the ordinary receipts into the revenue fund from July 
1, 1898, to June 30, 1899, and, when the apportion- 
ment was made in July, it has been shown that this 
fund was then short $200,000 of the amount due the 
public schools! 

Monthly reports of the state treasurer discloses the 
marvelous fact that, in July and August, 1899, not a 
single warrant drawn in payment of current expenses 
of the state government HAD BEEN PAID OUT OF 
THE STATE REVENUE FUND! 

But, notwithstanding this unfortunate condition of 
the revenue fund, the chairman of the Democratic 
state committee announces to the people of this state 
"THAT AT NO time within the past twenty years 
has a state warrant gone to protest or been delayed 
in payment for an hour;" thereby confessing the 
most notorious diversion of state funds known to 
the history of Missouri! Shameful boast of a con- 
stitution outraged and of laws trampled under foot! 

Among the office-holding gang controlling the Demo- 
cratic party in Missouri are men who have been draw- 
ing salaries from the state for more than a quarter of 
a century. 

74 



MISUSE OF STATE FUNDS. 

When first the doors of the state treasury were 
unlocked to them the bloom of youth was upon 
their cheeks, but in the passing years children have 
been born to them and now they can point to daugh- 
ters bearing the sweet name of mother and to sons 
old enough to command armies. 

The frost of winter comes and goes, the rain falls 
and the snows descend, but amid Nature's stormy 
blasts, luxurious offices, the monthly stipend, the con- 
tingent funds, the annual pass, the telegraph and the 
express frank, have made office holding very dear 
to them. 

But, alas! mutterings were heard — murmurings like 
a horrid nightmare disturbed their rest. Men said, 
"Every four years we have an election, and at the 
end of twelve and sixteen and twenty and twenty- 
five years we find the same men in office — one small 
set of men for the offices; three hundred and fifty 
thousand Democrats for the polls is not right! We 
want a change." 

Dave Ball was preaching a crusade against the 
ringsters. These were ominous signs. 

Payment of revenue warrants became a necessity. 
Failure to cash them meant death to the "MA- 
CHINE!" 

This is the why and the wherefore of all this 
juggling of your state funds. 

JOHN T. CLARKE. 

Jefferson City, Mo. 



75 



ALLEN-WILLIAMS CASE. 



MONEY WITHDRAWS FROM THE STATE TREASURY 
WITHOUT AN APPROPRIATION BY LAW. 



State Auditor Collects Race-Track Licenses and 
Gives Them to State Treasurer. 



Auditor Afterwards Withdraws Them From the Treasury 
at the Command of "Boss Butler." 



The State Constitution is specific. It provides : 
SECTION 15, ARTICLE 10-ALL MONEYS NOW, OR 
AT ANY TIME HEREAFTER, IN THE STATE TREAS- 
URY, BELONGING TO THE STATE, SHALL, IMMEDI- 
ATELY ON RECEIPT THEREOF, BE DEPOSITED BY 
THE TREASURER TO THE CREDIT OF THE STATE 
FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE FUNDS TO WHICH THEY 
RESPECTIVELY BELONG, ETC. 

SECTION 19, ARTICLE 10 -NO MONEYS SHALL 
EVER BE PAID OUT OF THE TREASURY OF THIS 
STATE, OR ANY OF THE FUNDS UNDER ITS MAN- 
AGEMENT, EXCEPT IN PURSUANCE OF AN APPRO- 
PRIATION BY LAW, ETC. 

Democratic state auditors and treasurers have vio- 
lated the supreme law of the people iu other ways 
than by authorizing the withdrawal of money and by 
taking it from the state treasury not "in pursuance 
of a regular appropriation made by law and upon 
the auditor's warrant." Take the present state au- 
ditor and treasurer for examples. 

Licenses to engage in "book-making," or gambling 
(under Sam B. Cook's breeders' law), were issued by 
State Auditor Allen to book-makers at the Delmar 
race track, in St. Louis County, near the city limits, 
in the summer of 1901. The money paid for these 

76 



ALLEN-WILLIAMS CASE. 

licenses was regularly collected and turned into the 
state treasury, or should have been under the con- 
stitution. 

Ed. Butler, the erstwhile Democratic "boss" and 
maker of Gov. A. M. Dockery, J. M. Seibert et al., is 
a leading stockholder in the Kinloch race track. It is 
a "merry-go-round," situated in St. Louis county, not 
conveniently accessible to turf patrons of the city, 
and with a plant of mediocre and unattractive pro- 
portions. It could not succeed as a business venture 
with the Delmar race track in operation, because the 
latter is a more modern and inviting institution, as 
well as more accessible. Butler, realizing this, at- 
tempted to force the owners of the Delmar race track 
to buy his stock in Kinloch. He threatened to "make 
it warm for the Delmar people" if his demand was 
refused. Butler received an absolute refusal to buy. 
This brought down the wrath of the garbage states- 
man. "Dummy" warrants were issued against the 
Delmar officials at the instigation of Butler, and were 
handed over to '''Bad Jack" Williams (King of Demo- 
cratic election repeaters) to serve, the latter being 
given the authority and aid of constables for the 
occasion. This notorious action led to the murder of 
Graham, who was one of the regular officials to op- 
pose the Butler "Indians" in their attempt to serve 
the warrants. 

JEFFERSON CITY RING USED. 
As soon as it was apparent that the Delmar officials 
would not agree to the highbinding demands made by 
Butler, the latter used his string to Excise Commis- 
sioner Seibert. He demanded Seibert's influence in re- 
turn for the assistance Seibert had received from 
Butler for his appointment as excise commissioner. 
Butler prevailed upon Seibert to force the state 
auditor .(Seibert's former chief clerk) to refund to 

77 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

Delinar the taxes collected by State Auditor Allen's 
agent, equivalent to a revocation of the bookmaker's 
license. This money had been previously collected 
in a regular way, and had been paid to State 
Treasurer R. P. Williams, as "trustee" (Allen de- 
clared), although there is no law authorizing this 
course of procedure. (See sec. 15, art. 10, State 
Constitution, at head of this article.) The state au- 
ditor's apparent purpose was to leave a loop-hole 
through which he might escape when attention was 
directed to the fact that the entire repayment was 
not constitutional. But, under the Democratic theory, 
a state constitution is merely a thing of beauty, and 
must not be considered seriously. Seibert, true to his 
ilk, as well as Butler, informed the state auditor that 
the money and licenses must be returned to Delmar, 
which was done, after having been turned over to 
the state treasurer, a clear violation of the constitu- 
tion. 

Only one trumped-up reason could be given why 
State Auditor Allen should revoke the licenses, it 
being that a few persons owned stock in both the 
fair grounds track and in Delmar, which Allen de- 
clared to be in violation of the provision preventing 
racing on any one track for more than ninety days 
during one season. Butler's hand was potential in 
the entire proceeding. 

Now mark the relation of benefactor and bene- 
ficiary: Gov. Dockery, State Auditor Allen and State 
Treasurer Williams were elected last November by 
the wholesale disfranchisement of Republicans by 
Ed. Butler's election and Harry Hawes' police ma- 
chines. Butler's "Indians," or election crooks, pad- 
ded the registration lists and "bands of repeaters," 
led in part by "Bad Jack" Williams, voted on fic- 
titious names, as Avell as on names of qualified voters, 

78 



ALLEN-WILLIAMS CASE. 

all the while protected by the Hawes police force. A 
service rendered by Butler and Hawes, converting a 
normal Republican plurality of 15,000 in St. Louis 
into a Democratic plurality on the very day that 
McKinley gained 20,000 votes on Bryan in Missouri 
outside of St. Louis, and Joe Flory made phenomenal 
gains in the rural districts, as worth something — both 
to the Dockery ticket and to Messrs. Butler, Seibert 
and Hawes. It meant election for Dockery, Allen 
and the Democratic state ticket, as well as Butler's 
son to congress. It meant "Jim" Seibert's appoint- 
ment as excise commissioner. It brought to Hawes 
reappointment as the president of the police board, 
after he had used the police department to encourage 
anarchy during the street car strike in St. Louis 
last year and commit election outrages last Novem- 
ber in Dockery's behalf, for which his department 
was denounced by the Morton grand jury, a repre- 
sentative body. 



79 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 



"IMPERIALISM" NOT ONLY A DEMOCRATIC POL- 

ICY, BUT AN ESTABLISHED PRACTICE IN 

THE LARGE CITIES. 



Democratic State Administrations Perpetuated by 
Nefarious Democratic State Boards. 



Discredited "State-House Ring" Retains Power 
Through Disfranchisement and Blackmail. 



SOME GRAND JURY REPORTS ON THE STEPHENS 
DOCKERY-NESBIT AND POLICE BOARDS. 



How Democratic Governors do not "Faithfully Execute" 
L,aws, as the Constitution Requires. 



Among other things, violation of the constitution 
by the executive department of the state government 
and the several officers of that co-ordinate branch of 
the government is charged in the introductory of this 
book. The governor is not the entire executive de- 
partment, but he is a member of it. The constitution 
defines his duties and the limitations upon his power. 
It provides that 

The Governor shall take care that the laws are distribu- 
ted and FAITHFULLY EXECUTED; and he shall be a 
conservator of the peace. (Sec. 6, Art. 5— State Consti- 
tution.) 

Under partisan and imperialistic laws enacted by 
despotic Democratic legislatures, approved by tyrani- 
cal Democratic governors and sustained by Demo- 
cratic supreme courts, the large cities of Missouri 
have been singled out from the rest of the state and 
have been saddled with government by governor's 

80 



DESPOTIC KILE IN MISSOURI. 

boards and appointees until not a vestige of home 
rule remains in those municipalities. The police and 
election department, together with the excise and 
various other branches of the government in the 
large cities have been granted such extraordinary 
and unrestricted powers that the right to exercise the 
elective franchise — the highest and fundamental right 
of American citizensship— has become a farce, life and 
property are no longer secure in the enjoyment of the 
protection of the government and the instrumentali- 
ties of justice have been converted into weapons for 
public plunder. 

Discredited and debauched, no longer able to appeal 
to the convictions and principles of the honest yeo- 
manry of the state, the Democratic "state house ring" 
exercised its usurped powers and resorts to wholesale 
disfranchisement, blackmail of legitimate industries 
and stops at nothing in the large cities to perpetuate 
itself in power. The proposition is very simple. The 
ballot box, the registration books, the entire election 
paraphernalia, all the election machinery, the police 
and the city treasury in St. Louis, not to mention the 
World's Fair machinery, are under Democratic control 
and the Democratic supreme court has ruled that 
elections so held are non-contestable. It holds tha£ 
the ballot boxes stuffed by the Stephens-Doekery- 
Nesbit law manipulators, protected by the Stephens- 
Dockery police, cannot be opened so as to permit a 
comparison of the votes cast with the registration 
lists to determine whether or not fraud has been com- 
mitted — and it cannot be conclusively proved any 
other way. What, then, is there to prevent making 
of election returns in St. Louis, Kansas City and any- 
where else in -Missouri, whatever the corrupt "state- 
house ring" pleases to make them, after holding back 
the returns until the rural districts of the state have 
been heard from — as was done at the November, 1900, 

G 81 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

election, when A. M, Docliery was declared elected 
governor of Missouri and the sanctified "Jim" But- 
ler, of Standard Theater fame, was counted in as a 
member of Congress? 

But to return to the constitutional requirement that 
"the governor shall faithfully execute the laws" of 
the state. How have Democratic governors of Mis- 
souri observed this mandate of the people? 

GOVERNMENT BY STATE BOARDS. 

The infamous Judson police law, enacted as a twin 
companion of the cheating Nesbit election Jaw by the 
Democratic legislature of 1899, authorizes the gov- 
ernor to appoint a police board, consisting of three 
members, for the city of St. Louis. Another statute 
of Democratic origin and design empowers the gov- 
ernor to appoint an excise commissioner for St. Louis. 
Still another law (Nesbit), the product of a Democratic 
legislature, governor and supreme court, invests the 
chief executive with the power to appoint an election 
board, of three members. Thus the entire control 
of the police and election departments of the govern- 
ment of St. Louis, together with absolute authority 
over all the dramshops (estimated at two thousand) 
are in the hands of the governor — not an imperialist . 
nor a despotic ruler, but a "Democratic chief magis- 
trate,*' unreservedly and resolutely pledged to "home 
rule," "local self-government," government "by and 
with the consent of the governed." 

Fortunately this usurpation of political power car- 
ries with it responsibility. The principal is : 
for the acts of his agents the governor, for the ad- 
ministration of his tyranical police and election I 
and his excise commissioner (in St. Louis the chair- 
man of the Democratic state committee). 

Now, what was the conduct of the* St. Louis police 
and election boards and excise commissioner appoint- 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 

ed by Gov. Eon V. Stephens? Head the following 
extracts from the reports of non-partisan, representa- 
tive grand juries, remembering all the time that the 
same Stephens' police and election boards in St. Louis 
have been reappointed by the "worthy" and "stales- 
manlike" Governor A. M. Dockery: 

January, 1901, grand jury report, Isaac W. Morton, 
mentioned as a possibility for the Democratic nomi- 
nation for World's Fair Mayor of St. Louis in 1901. 
chairman. This extract relates to the administration 
of the police board, of which Harry B. Hawes, ap- 
pointed by Lon V. Stephens and reappointed by Alex- 
ander M. Dockery, was and is president. The report, 
however, concerns the board's conduct prior to 
Hawes' reappointment and J. M. Seibert's appoint- 
ment as excise commissioner. Here it is in full, in- 
sofar as the report relates to the police board and 
bribery and November (1900) election charges and 
outrages: 

MORTON GRAND JURY REPORT. 

The general publicity given to the police bribery matters 
at the very start, in our opinion, forced all the making of 
cases by giving others, who may have been guilty of like 
crime, ample opportunity to terrorize and arrange the testi- 
mony of witnesses that were called subsequently. And that 
this was done and that little of testimony was unearthed 
where much existed is the opinion of every juryman. We 
hold the police department responsible for prematurely mak- 
ing public testimony then and there in their possession. The 
grand jury is not a good agency for the original detection of 
fraud and their efforts in an attempt to detect it have been 
thwarted by the very agencies most competent to carry it 
out. It is vitally important, in the way of conserving the 
best interests of the city, that the Police Board and the rank 
and file of the force should be as nearly non-partisan as pos- 
sible. The law provides that politics shall not be considered 
in the selection of the police. At- present, however, the force 
is drawn almost entirely from one political party, so that 
party allegiance is evidently one of the chief credentials 
for appointments. And it is but natural that on the part 
of many political activity should be considered of paramount 
importance to the faithful performance of duty, and, more- 
over, a security for the holding of positions. "The police in 
some sections of the city did not do their full duty in con- 
nection with the last election, many instances having come 
to our knowledge of pernicious activity and masterful inac- 
tivity. 

S3 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAM PA ION BOOK. 



NOVEMBER ELECTION CONSPIRACY. 

The president of the Police Board has offered to throw- 
open to us the minutes of the meetings of the Police Board, 
to show instructions to the force, and the actions and pro- 
ceedings of the board. We have not looked into them ex- 
cept in reference to one particular case. It is what trans- 
pires outside of such meetings, of which there is no record, 
that we take exception to. For instance, the testimony laid 
before us shows that on the evening of November 2 a meet- 
ing was held in one of the Southern Hotel parlors at which 
were present some of the members of both the Police and 
Election Commissioners, some of the state officials. Chief of 
l'olice and prominent political workers. All of these parties 
were of one political complexion (Democratic). In other words, 
it was a political caucus to discuss matters in relation to the 
coming election and devise plans to be carried out that would 
best conserve the interests of their political party. The chief 
subject under discussion was in reference to the instruction 
that should be given the police regarding deputy sheriffs on 
election day. 

The president of the Police Board then and there instructed 
the Chief to issue orders to the police the next morning at 
roll call, and under instructions from the Chief orders were 
read not to permit deputy sheriffs to go beyond the 100-foot 
boundary line at the polls, and in the event that they at- 
tempted to do so to arrest them. Deputy sheriffs duly clothed 
with authority by law to arrest law breakers of a certain class 
were to be themselves arrested if in the performance of their 
duty they overstepped a boundary line which it w r ould be in 
most instances necessary to do in order to capture offenders. 
The jury was reliably informed and has reason to believe 
that there was no interpretation of the law that would jus- 
tify police interference with the deputy sheriffs armed with 
w r arrants, and who were present with the avowed purpose of 
apprehending fraudulent voters. 

Undue and unnecessary prominence was given to the ques- 
tion of deputy sheriffs at the polling places. The statutes of 
the state require that the police shall maintain order at such 
places on the day of election, and the questionable order is- 
sued as the result of the caucus meeting above cited had 
much greater tendency to create disturbance than it did the 
prevention of trouble. In a strict sense it was not the presi- 
dent of the Police Board who gave the instructions to the 
Chief. It was the partisan, and the instructions w r ere the 
result of a political caucus, the atmosphere of which is not 
best calculated to brjng about unbiased judgment in refer- 
ence to political methods. Another meeting was hurriedly 
called, about midnight previous to election day, at which 
were present a number of those who attended the first one. 
At 3 o'clock a. m. the Chief of Police was told to change the 
instructions previously given to the extent that when deputy 
sheriffs armed with their warrants, could point out the sub- 
ject of that w r arrant, within the 100-foot limit, he would be 
permitted to pass that line and make the arrest. 

The evidence that has come before us leaves no shadow of 
doubt in our minds that the instructions embodied in the 
first order were carried out, and carried out aggressively, re- 
sulting in a prevention of deputy sheriffs performing their 
duty, and, in many cases, in their being maltreated. It is 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 



customary for the president of the Police Board to give in- 
structions between the meetings of the board, and have them 
confirmed subsequently. There is no record in reference to 
either of these orders on the Police Board minutes. In our 
opinion it was one of the most important orders in the his- 
tory of the Police Board that has been given without any 
record whatever on the proceedings of the board. On the 
one hand it is claimed that the orders given at roll call were 
different from those that the chief was instructed to give. 
On the other hand, it is claimed that they are the same. We 
must rest content to simply cite the facts. 

POLICEMAN A BURGLAR. 

It is not our desire to touch upon unimportant matters, but 
as articles have appeared in the press giving the impression 
that the Meer case is such, silence on our part would be in- 
terpreted, and properly so. as viewing it in the same way. 
We do not consider it. The act committed by Meer (a po- 
liceman) was not a boyish freak. He broke into a house 
(while a policeman), burglarized it, took goods to the value 
of $175, was arrested and confessed the whole crime. We do 
not concur in the statement of President Hawes, given in the 
press, and to us, that there was no possible way whereby 
he could have been relieved from service without his being 
guilty of some misdemeanor since his enrollment which would 
justify the preferring of charges against bim. Testimony was 
given to the effect that it had been customary to notify 
such parties that their previous records have been found out 
and ask them to resign, which request had been almost in- 
variably complied with, for the very obvious reason that 
noncompliance meant general publicity of their crime. It 
would seem to us that this would be a natural procedure, and 
that it was within the power of some one to ask for the 
resignation, give orders to some one to ask for it, or to sec 
by some means that it was asked for. As it is, a violator of 
the law is on the force, the purpose of which is to prevent 
crime and conserve the peace. Such things are ^a menace 
to the community and an insult to his self-respecting fellows. 



With the permission of Judge W. E. Fisse, one of 
the attorneys for the contestant in the Horton-Butler 
election case in the twelfth congressional district, the 
following extracts from contestant's brief are pub- 
lished: 

SOUTHERN HOTEL CAUCUS. 

That the purpose of the Police Department was as stated, 
and that it was actuated in these proceedings only by an 
intention to romote at any hazard a wicked partisan enter- 
prise, is not a matter merely of inference, but is a fact com- 
pletely established. by the testimony concerning the proceed- 
ings at the secret caucus held at the Southern Hotel a day 
or two before election, adverted to in the report of the Grand 
Jury. The testimony concerning this caucus is supplied by 

SS 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



Mr. Hawes, President of the Police Board; the Chief of Po- 
lice, the Chief of the Detective Service of the Police Depart- 
ment, all the members (excepting Mr. Kobusch) of the Board 
of Election Commissioners; Mr. Hoblitzelle, the Secretary 

of the Board and Deputy Election Commissioner; Mr. Sei- 
bert, the Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, and 
others. These witnesses all agree that, beside all the officials 
of the Police Department, and all but one of the Elections 
Department, there were present at this meeting all the chief 
officials of the Democratic State Central Committee, of the 
Democratic Congressional Committee for this District, and of 
the Democratic City Central Committee, and that besides 
these there were also in attendance Mr. Edward Butler, the 
Democratic boss of the city, father of the contestee. and 
many other conspicuous Democratic politicians and 
"workers." 

Another fact appears with equal distinctness, namely, that 
the only officials of the Police and Election Departments who 
were not present at this momentous conference were two 
Republicans, to wit, the mayor of the city,, ex-officio a mem- 
ber of the Police Board, and Mr. George J. Kobusch, the Re- 
publican member of the Board of Elections. 

Of all these witnesses, the chief of Police, and Mr. J. M. 
Seibert, Chairman of the Democratic State Central Commit- 
tee, are the only ones who testify with any degree of candor 
as to what transpired at the meeting. The latter confesses 
that this meeting was brought about because it had become 
known that the Republican Congressional Committee had cir- 
culated registered letters addressed to men suspected of false 
registration, and had procured warrants to be issued for the 
arrest of persons charged to have fraudulently procured reg- 
istration. He says that at his suggestion the attorney gen- 
eral of the state was sent for (it is unnecessary to say that 
this officer was a Democrat) in order that they might obtain 
from him advice as to how the service of these warrants 
could be legally stopped. (See page 478.) The witness pro- 
ceeded to state that at this meeting "It was decided that 
everybody interested should -take all the steps necessary 
under the law, that a legitimate and fair election should be 
had in the city of St. Louis, and every voter should have an 
opportunity to cast his vote unmolested, and bave his vote 
fairly and honestly counted." And to that end it seems 
the chief law officer of the state advised that resort should 
be had to a law which he then and there manufactured out 
of the film of his own imagination in order to prevent the 
arrest of the only persons who were clearly and regularly ac- 
cused of an intention to cheat at the election. Mr. I 
professed great solicitude for voters who were likely to be 
threatened or intimidated by sli-riii'^' officers holding lawful 
warrants, but being asked to explain what voters were en- 
dangered by the proceedings of the Congressional Committee 
and these depnty sheriffs, the witness could only give answer 
(Record, page 479), lhat the voters likely to be intimidated 
by Tbes' 1 proceedings were the people registered from room- 
ing houses. Though repeatedly asked to state any other class 
of persons that would be likely to be interfered with by the 
actions of the eommitfee and the warrants which had been 
issued, the witness repeatedly said that there was no other 
class of persons. TTo became indignant at tlm frequent de- 

86 ' 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 



mand that he should name some other class of threatened 
voters, if any was known to him, but his indignation could 
not enlarge the- class. 

The proceedings at this caucus culminated in an order to 
the police not to allow the deputies to stand around the polls. 
The President of the Police Board testifies that the order was 
as follows (see Record, p. 118): "It was considered that the 
presence of these deputies for any other purpose than that 
of serving warrants, was illegal, and I therefore instructed 
Chief Campbell not to allow deputies to stand around the 
polls, and to show them no more consideration than ordi- 
nary citizens, except the deputy was about to serve a war- 
rant, and in that case he was not to be interfered with." 

The testimony of the Chief of Police concerning this order 
is as follows (Record p. 140): "The day before election the 
captains were instructei not to allow any of the deputy 
sheriffs or anybody else within 100 feet of the polling places, 
except they were there for the purpose of voting. The next 
morning, or, in other words, the morning of the election day. 
about 3 o'clock, the order was rescinded, and they were in- 
structed to allow deputy sheriffs within the 100-foot limit, if 
armed with warrants." 

The Chief of Police testified more particularly concerning 
these orders to the department when recalled for further 
examination as a witness. (See Record, p. 425.) He there 
says: "Well, I was called to the club (Jefferson Club) as well 
as I remember now about 2 o'clock (a. m.) on the morning 
of election day. There I met Mr. Hawes, Colonel Overall. 
Judge McCaffery and Colonel Kingsland, and the question of 
deputy sheriffs came up. Colonel Overall advised that a 
deputy sheriff armed with a warrant could go any place. 
and the order was rescinded to that effect. If a deputy 
sheriff made his appearance at a polling place with a warrant 
he would be allowed to serve it without interference from 
the police." 

Mr. Hawes' testimony concerning this 2 a. m. amendment, 
of I lie order to the police is interesting, but as to the main 
fact is, at least, inaccurate. The strange inconsistency of the 
advice obtained by the head of the Police Department from 
the Attorney General of the state, and that received from 
Colonel Overall, cannot escape attention. The testimony is 
clear that the Attorney General advised that deputy sheriffs 
had no greater rights about the polls than any other person, 
and were equally subject to the jurisdiction of the judges 
and clerks of election. (Testimony of Hawes, p. 129). Yet in 
less than twenty-four hours after parting from the Attorney 
General at this meeting Mr. Hawes, without hesitation ac- 
cepted the advice of Mr. Overall that a deputy sheriff armed 
with a warrant could go any place. (See testimony of Camp- 
bell, p. 425, and Hawes, p. 430.) We are disposed to credit 
the testimony of the Chief of Police to the effect that he is- 
sued an order to the department modifying the terms of his 
original order. That the department, particularly the officers 
posted at voting nlares within the Twelfth District, did not 
understand it to be their duty to ait accordiug to the second 
order, is he clear conclusion of the Grand Jury, and is made 
indisputable by their conduct on the day of election. 



87 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



POLICE AND ELECTION OFFICIALS. 

It appears from the testimony that at this secret caucus 
ihere were discussed some other matters besides the subject 
of deputy sheriffs. Mr. Harry Hawes seems to have uo dis- 
tinct recollection of what transpired at this meeting except 
the fact that on one or two occasions he left the session room 
for the purpose of buying some cigars. But other witnesses 
have not suffered any such lapse of memory, and their testi- 
mony supplies the information that among these other sub- 
jects discussed was the authority of the judges and clerks 
to order persons to be ejected from the room, and also the 
question as to how far it was obligatory upon the police 
officers present to obey any such order issued by the judges of 
election. Enough was let fall by these witnesses during their 
examination to make it clear that there was considerable dis- 
cussion about the matter of permitting Republican challen- 
gers to remain in the voting places, and the significant con- 
clusion of the caucus, which, according to the testimony, was 
finally reached at this meeting (a conclusion it must be re- 
membered which had the support of the Attorney General of 
the State) was that the judges and clerks could order a police 
officer to eject a man and arrest him. Mr. Hawes is able to 
remember that much, although he is disposed to think that 
when the conversation occurred about the challengers he was 
downstairs buying cigars (p. 129). 

The significance of the resolution adopted at this caucus 
that police officers should be instructed to abide by and obey 
the orders of the judges of election became perfectly clear 
early on election day. Immediately upon the opening of the 
polls in many election districts within this congressional dis- 
trict, the Democratic judges of election ordered Republican 
challengers to be ejected, and the police present — conceiving 
ir to be the opinion of the Attorney General that none except 
Democratic officers were entitled to be recognized as persons 
of authority— instantly obeyed orders from these men. ami not 
only ejected the challengers, but very persistently stood in 
the way of their returning to their duty at all during the 
entire day. In the very few instances where the police proved 
recreant, or the Democratic judges showed themselves to be 
faint-hearted, other and equally effective means were found 
to dispose of these troublesome Republican watchers, but in 
■view of the testimony showing what the challengers endnred 
who were subjected to the operation of the substituted 
method of ejection, it is reasonable to conclude that if per- 
mitted their choice these men would have rather accepted 
the oilier method. The police had no part in this substituted 
procedure except the part of arresting and holding as a pris- 
oner the unfortunate Republican challenger who had been 
beaten in many cases into a state of insensibility by ruffians 
who were escorted to and away from the scene of the assault 
by uniformed police officers, it is a singular fact worth not- 
ing at this point that about the only persons arrested by the 
police on this extremely quiet election day. (for so it is de- 
scribed by the entire police department) were the unfortun- 
ate victims of assault. Tn not one single case was the as- 
sailant arrested. This circumstance is probably one of the 
matters which the Grand Jury had in mind when it spoke 
of the oomlnct of (lie Police Department ;is characterized 



DESFOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 



in part by "pernicious activity and at other times by mas- 
terful inactivity." 



HA WES CONTRADICTED BY SEIBERT. 

According to the gentleman who is so fortunate as to carry 
the double honor of being at once President of the Police 
Board and President of the Jefferson Club, this remarkable 
caucus at the Southern Hotel was only an informal meeting 
for the purpose of definitely determining the jurisdiction of 
the election officers on the day of election and the duty of 
the Police Department to observe the orders of the election 
officers. Legal advice was what was wanted, according to 
him. Mr. Hawes complains that the officials of the Police 
and Election Boards were handicapped because of the fact 
that the political faith of the City Counsellor, their legal 
advisor under the law, precluded their giving him an invita- 
tion to attend at this session. They, therefore, availed them- 
selves of the convenient services of the Attorney General of 
the state, as to whom they felt no such qualms: and prob- 
ably because of a fear that the Attorney General might prove 
insufficient for the purpose, they called in to assist him Mr. 
Edward Butler and all the other Democratic politicians and 
workers within their reach or call. 

The events of election day contradict Mr. Hawes' testi- 
mony, but he is also absolutely and flatly contradicted by 
Mr. Seibert. The latter does not hesitate to say that the 
meeting was called for the purpose of counteracting the 
effort to procure the arrest of persons accused of having 
falsely registered. The presence of Butler and these other 
men is explainable and consistent with Seibert's account of 
the matter. The date of the meeting isi another circumstanee 
that furnishes support to Mr. Seibert's testimony, and the 
performances of the police at the election furnish the final 
evidence. 

It. is not to be wondered that the Grand Jury should say 
concerning this meeting, and of the instructions to the police 
which were there originated, that "'In a strict sense it was 
not the President of the Police Board who gave the instruc- 
tions to the Chief. It was the partisan, and the instructions 
were the result of a political caucus, the atmosphere of 
which is not best calculated to bring about unbiased judg- 
ment with reference to political methods." 

Reviewing the entire testimony as to the orders which 
were actually given to the Department, we are forced, also, 
to accept the conclusion of this Grand. Jury, to wit: "The 
evidence * * * leaves no shadow of doubt * * * but 
that the instructions embodied in the first order were car- 
ried out, and carried out' aggressively, resulting in a preven- 
tion of deputy sheriffs performing their duty, and in many 
cases being maltreated." This conclusion is not in any de- 
gree weakened by the fact, also pointed out in the report 
<>f the Granl Jury, that although it is customary for the 
President of the Police Board to have, his actions taken be- 
tween sessions of the Board confirmed at the meeting fol- 
lowing, there is no record whatever in the minutes of the 
Police Board concerning either one of these orders. 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



POLICE CONTRIBUTIONS TO CAMPAIGN PI NO. 

It has already been pointed out in this statement that the 
Police Department was extremely active in procuring the 
passage of the Police Law of 1899, and the Nesbit Law of the 
same year, and that the members of the Department were 
made ro contribute the large sum of $20,000 to promote the 
passage of these laws and to obtain a decision affirming their 
constitutionality. 

The fact has also been pointed out that the members of the 
police force were, with only a few exceptions, all members 
of the Democratic party and aciive in the work of the Jef- 
ferson Club, of which, as stated, the official head of the 
Department (Hawes) was a!so president. But the interest 
of the police in the matter of this election is not all included 
within the statements that have been already made. The 
testimony completely establishes (although we are again 
forced to get along without the aid of the memory of Mr. 
Hawes and without assistance from any of the other mem- 
bers of high rank in the department and notwithstanding 
that at least one police captain, when interrogated concern- 
ing the subject declined to testify lest his answers might sub- 
ject him to a criminal prosecution) that the members of the 
Police Department in the City of St. Louis contributed to the 
Democratic campaign fund for the year 1900 the sum of 
$25,000. 

As in the case of the Southern Hotel secret caucus, we 
have two witnesses concerning this contribution who speak 
with candor— one, the Chief of Police, who evidently do- 
tested what had been done; the other, Mr. James M. Sei- 
bert, Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, who 
without hesitation admits the facts because of his convic- 
tion (see Record, p. 487) that "Every man who was holding 
a position under the Democratic administration of this state 
should contribute such sums' in support of the campaign as 
he felt justified in doing." And he said that on this theory 
he rated the policemen of St. Louis as proper persons to be 
so assessed. 

The first contribution received from the Department 
amounted to the sum of $20,459.87. (See testimony of Ward, 
p. 423 also testimony of Campbell, p. 147.) The Chief also 
testifies that each officer was asked to contribute to the 
fund and they did so. (Record, p. 147.) 

The ratio which determined the amount of each man's 
contribution may be ascertained from the testimony of Cap- 
tain McNamee, from which if appears that it was 20 per 
cent of the monthly salary. Patrolmen paid $18; sergeants, 
$22: lieutenants. $30, and captains, $50. The number of the 
police force in the City of St. Louis under the present law 
is fixed by the terms of the law itself printed in the Ap- 
pendix, page 67. This percentage being multiplied into the 
number of men of each grade will be found to yield almosl 
exactly the amount of money shown 1o have been contributed 
on this first occasion. 

This sum of money was paid about the middle of Sep- 
tember. But ;i few days before the election another demand 
was made upon the department, which realized, according 
testimony of Chief Camnbell (Record, page 425) be- 
tween $4,000 and Of ibis amount about one-half 

00 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 



was used. 1 1 was paid over to the Jefferson, Club, and 
the account of the City Central Committee in evidence shows 
that it was used on election day by representatives of this 
club at the polling places. The remainder was reserved for 
the next municipal election following soon after. 

POLICE FORCE AS A "GRAFT." 

The testimony also shows that this contribution from the 
Police Department to the campaign fund was considerably 
more than one-half of the whole amount raised by the State 
Committee, which, according to the avowal of its President, 
assessed every office-holder throughout the state, and re- 
ceived many contributions besides. We ask that these facts 
be borne in mind in order that an answer may be given to 
the question propounded by the Grand Jury, namely, whether 
it is not true of the Police Department of St. Louis that 
"political activity is considered a matter of paramount im- 
portance to the faithful performance of duty, and more- 
over, a security for the holding of positions." 

And along with other facts to be considered in arriving at 
an answer to this question there should also be taken into 
account the further fact that, since giving his testimony in 
this case, the Chief of Police has been removed from his 
office and degraded to an inferior rank, while Mathew 
Kiely, who, of all the police captains, showed himself to 
be at once the most zealous and the most brutal partisan, 
has been advanced to the place that once was held by the 
only member of the Police Department who was willing to 
testify the whole truth as he knew it in answer to ques- 
tions directly calling for his knowledge. 

Does not the fate of Chief Campbell show "that political 
activity is a security for the holding of positions in the de- 
partment?" 

The truth is (to quote again from the report of the Grand 
Jury), "Undue and unnecessary prominence was given -to the 
question of deputy sheriffs at the polling places." The fact 
that these deputy sheriffs had been appointed was seized 
upon as a pretext by men who were eac;erly searching for 
some excuse to justify their contemplated action. They pre- 
tended to believe that an army of these deputy sheriffs was 
to be engaged, whereas, in truth, only about fifty were ever 
appointed, and less than this number actually served. "The 
questionable order, issued as the result of the caucus meet- 
ing, had much greater tendency in create disturbance than 
to prevent trouble." Th tse an d who pretended to fear that 
voters would be intimated themselves resorted to most ag- 
gravated methods of intimidation, using as their instrument 
the organized noiiee force of the city and opposing this foree 
against every other constituted authority that sought to re- 
press crime at the election. 

HA WES' CLUB PADDED REGISTRATION LISTS. 

In view of the fact that the Hawes' Jefferson Club 

and Hawes' police department are practically one and 

the same, and that A. M. Dockery was one of {he 

beneficiaries of its work in November, 1900, and Roll a 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

Wells another in April, 1901, and inasmuch as 19,100 
names were stricken from the registration lists in 
October, 1901, the following extract from Judge 
Fisse's brief is very interesting: 

Mr. Hawes, when exploiting the performances of the Jef- 
ferson Club, is frequently disposed to be boastful and some- 
times willing to be truthful. At page 138 he tells of the 
work done by the "ward organization committee" of this 
club in order to secure the largest possible registration by 
Democratic voters. Although he intimates that something 
was done by others, he says: "I think that the Jefferson 
Club, being a more complete and stronger club, did the 
major part of the work." Upon inspection of the account 
filed by the treasurer of the Democratic State Committee 
there was found, among other items, this one: "September 
22— Given Campbell expense registration of voters $5,000." 
Mr. Campbell was at that time vice-president of the Jeffer- 
son Club, and the testimony shows that he received this 
money in behalf of the club and that it was disbursed by 
the club. 

Mr, Hawes indignantly resents the imputation that any of 
the registrations thus procured were illegitimate, yet a par- 
tial canvass of this Twelfth District, which did not take in 
more than one-half of the entire territory within the district, 
discovered no less than 14,000 cases of false registration, all of 
which occurred in the particular districts where "Jefferson- 
ian Democracy" most actively exerted itself. Neither Mr. 
Hawes nor any other of the "witnesses who have undertaken 
to justify this expenditure of the club are able to specify 
any legitimate use that was made of this large sum of 
money, and they cannot point to any extensive registration 
actually accomplished except this fraudulent registration. 

Notwithstanding Mr. Murphy's assertion that the Court of 
Appeals granted "naturalization without charge and without 
price, the record of this Stale Committee shows tne pay- 
ment to him of the sum of $135 on account of the expense of 
naturalization. (See Record, page 424.) The intimate rela- 
tions that existed between this State Committee and the 
Jefferson Club are shown by the testimony in regard to the 
Southern Hotel caucus. Since the records of the committee 
itself show its participation in the illegal naturalization done 
in the Court of Appeals, it does not seem altogether unrea- 
sonable to conclude, in the absence of any explanation show- 
ing other use of the money, that this sum of $5,000 contrib- 
uted to the Jefferson Club for expense of registration, had 
considerable to do with getting on the registration list this 
enormous number of 14,000 false registrations. 

GRAND JURY ON NOVEMBER ELECTION. 

See what the Morton grand jury reported after :i 
thorough investigation of the November (1900) elec- 
tion in St. Louis and don't forget that A. M. Dockcry 

92 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 

was then the Democratic nominee for governor and 
■that President McKinley's majority of 15,600 in St. 
Louis in 1896 was reduced to a plurality of 666 in 
St. Louis in November, 1900, although he gained 
thousands of votes on Bryan in Missouri outside of 
St. Louis in 1900, carried more stales and received 
a larger vote in the electoral college than in 1896. 
Is it possible that because the election in St. Louis 
was stolen for A. M. Dockery for goveruor that the 
Hawes' police board and the McCaffrey election board 
officiating at the time were reappointed by Mr. Dock- 
ery? Is it probable that because James M.^ Seibert 
was chairman of the Democratic state committee 
at the time, with headquarters in St. Louis, and pre- 
sided over the famous Southern hotel conference, he 
was appointed excise commissioner of St. Louis? 

But let us see what the Morton grand jury re- 
ported about the November election wherein A. M. 
Dockery was the Democratic nominee for governor, 
Harry B. Hawes was president of the St. Louis police 
board, James McCaffrey was president of the St. 
Louis election (Nesbit) board, and James M. Seibert 
was chairman of the Democratic state committee, by 
the grace of A. M. Dockery: 

FRAUD! FRAUD! FRAUD! 

"The cry of fraud by defeated candidates at election is so 
frequent and so natural that the public is apt to become in- 
different to> some extent upon the subject. Some fraud may 
be generally admitted, but great fraud is, as a rule, dis- 
claimed. If, in the minds of the community the feeling ex- 
ists that the last election was carried out with only ordi- 
nary partiality and the result must have represented the will 
of the people, it becomes our duty to dispel it, as the facts, 
such as have been brought before us, far exceed anything in 
the way of irregularity any one of your jurors had ever ever 
previously assumed to exist. It is true that the cases where 
this jury has fixed distinct charges against particular indi- 
viduals are not many, but so far as proving an absence of 
criminal wrong, it has, to our minds, added to the gravity 
of the situation in showing us that so complete is the system 
of political machinery in all its ramifications, even to coa- 
lition of opposing factions, that there has been woven a 
web of safety over frauds committed — fraud in the registra- 

93 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



i km of voters, fraud in ike returns of canvasses by clerks, 
and fraud iu the reception of illegal ballots. To some extent 
the very high-handed proceedings undertaken at some of the 
precincts on election day were the means of preventing the 
detection of fraud, it having been so determined and daring 
that many parties, by becomiug terrorized and through ab- 
solute fear, avoided making any attempt to detect it. There 
is no question but there has been a well planned attack 
upon the integrity of popular elections. Investigation into 
the registration list develops a most startling condition. 
Flagrant cases of block registration have occurred, which 
can only be explained by a systematic colonization of voters 
and an extensive stuffing of the registration lists with the 
connivance or active support of members of both parties, 
whose duty it is to correct such frauds. 

"The election law contemplates the providing of equal 
representation in the way of clerks and judges through the 
recommendations of their respective party organizations. 
From the testimony submitted we find such recommendations 
to the Election Commissioners were more or less disregarded. 
Clerks, one of whom is a Republican and the other a Demo- 
crat, if loyal to their party and honest in their performance 
of their duty, could not have failed in their canvass to have 
discovered such large false registration. 

"In reference to judges, the testimony given before us 
showed that in numerous cases they refused to permit party 
challengers to remain during the taking, of the vote, and 
gave orders to the police to have them ejected, although 
they are, by law, given the right to be there as representa- 
tives of their respective parties, and by law given the es- 
pecial protection of the judges. 

"During election day a number of polling places were vis- 
ited by bands of men to the number of fifty to sixty, who 
drove from polling place to polling place, and at the Third 
and Fourth precincts in the Twenty-Fifth ward terrorized 
the neighborhood, formed in line, entered the polls, and to 
all appearances voted, although some of them were well 
recognized as notorious characters, known to live outside of 
the ward. 

POLICE PROTECT REPEATERS. 

"It is a significant fact that in one of these precincts a 
squad of police arrived almost simultaneously with this band 
of men, and remained at the polling place about half an hour 
and accompanied them when they left. 

"The entire conduct of the election, including registration, 
failure to canvass excluding challengers, interference with 
deputy sheriff's in their efforts to arrest offenders against the 
election law and a seeming protection to bands of undoubted 
repeaters must have emanated from a well-couceived and 
carefully planned movement. 

"Owing to the fact that in the enlarged false registration 
we have found to haye occurred, the names of the voters 
so registered were almost all of a fictitious character, your 
jury has been able to identify but a few, which accounts 
tor the comparatively small number of indictments we have 
made for this offense, and also that of illegal voting, which 
was made difficult to detect in consequence of challengers 
having been ejected from the polling places. The election 

01 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 

frauds have been many and the ways so devious that 1his 
grand jury can not follow them to a conclusion in the time 
allotted it," 

ONE-MAN ELECTION BOARD. 
The infamies perpetrated under the Nesbit law in 
the interest of A. M. Dockery, the entire Democratic 
state ticket and "Jim" Butler, for congress, in the 
November election, can be imagined when it is re- 
membered that in its original form (and it is not 
much better now) the Nesbit law authorized the gov- 
ernor to appoint the three members of the election 
board for St. Louis. Two of these are Democrats and 
they constituted a "quorum." This "quorum" ap- 
pointed a "deputy election commissioner," Clarence 
Hoblitzelle, a close relative of President C. W. Kuapp 
of the St. Louis Republic. The "deputy election com- 
missioner" was vested with the power to sit in the 
absence of the election board, if for sickness or other 
cause, to be determined by the board, and could and 
did exercise all the powers of the board. Among 
other things, Deputy Election Commissioner Hob- 
litzelle appointed all the judges and clerks of election 
for the November, 1000, election — Republican as well 
as Democratic. These judges and clerks, under the 
Nesbit law, were absolute masters of the polling 
places, of all the election paraphernalia, and could 
command the police at will, who under the Nesbit 
law are constituted "peace officers." These judges 
and clerks also supervised the revision of the regis- 
tration lists. The character of their work is best in- 
dicated by the fact that many of them have twice 
been indicted by successive grand puries for outrages 
committed at both the November and April elections, 
of which A. M. Dockery and Rolla Wells have been 
beneficiaries. Hoblitzelle's administration can be un- 
derstood partially by recalling the. fact that while the 
custodian of the records of the election board, election 

05 



STATE REPUBLICAM CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

returns were forged to throw the control of the house 
of delegates to the Democrats, or more especially to 
Ed Butler. 

On the question of judges and clerks the following 
extract from Judge Fisse's brief is very instructive: 

JUDGES AND CX.ERKS OF ELECTION. 

This is a very extensive subject, as to which the testimony 
is very voluminous: To give a statement ot the testimony 
with any degree of particularity would be an almost endless 
task. The force and value of the testimony, moreover, lies 
in its mass, and does not consist simply iu its probative force 
as an impeachment of the proceedings at a few particular 
precincts. The real worth of this testimony is the exhibition 
which it furnishes of partisanship on the part of the Board 
of Elections. It will be remembered that the law requires 
that au equal number of judges and clerks for each election 
district shall be selected from the two political parties. 
Under the former election law the Republican commissioner 
had authority to select all of these judges and clerks for his 
own party. That right was taken away by the Nesbit law, 
and the power of appointment was given to the majority of 
the Board (this majority consisting of two Democratic mem- 
bers of the board), and might even be exercised by a sub- 
ordinate officer of the Board, to wit, the secretary and 
deputy election commissioner. The testimony shows that in 
point of fact all the selections of the judges and clerks were 
made by this deputy election commissioner. (See testimony 
of Kiugsland, p. 153; and Hoblitzelle, pp. 525-527.) 

These gentlemen say that as a matter of "courtesy" the 
Republican managing committee was asked to submit names 
of men whom they desired to have appointed as judges and 
clerks, but the testimony makes it clear that the courtesy 
consisted only in preferring this request and did not extend 
to the carrying out of the implied promise that appointments 
would be made from this list. The evidence conclusively 
shows that in the selection of Republican judges and clerks 
the advice of Ed Butler, Bobby Carroll, Jeff Preudergast 
and Ed. Guion, Judge Taafe and others whose names and 
rank in the Democratic organization have become familiar 
through the account of the Southern Hotel caucus, was 
readily accepted iD the place of the suggestions which came 
from the constituted committee of the Republican party. 

It developed that even the "courteous" request to submit 
names was a mere trap. The committeemen were invited to 
submit a list of five names, and to indicate upon the list, by 
proper marks, the places for which they recommend the men. 
whether judges or clerks, and were also requested to arrange 
the names in order of their preference. So far as the Twelfth 
District is concerned few appointments were made from the 
list of names submitted by the committee, and, strangely 
enough, in the majority of cases where appointments were 
made out of this list the men selected were not the ones 
marked by .the committee, but were those who stood lowest 
in the order of preference. 

96 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 



If the recommendations of the Republican committee were 
preserved in the office of the Election Commissioners, they 
have been so cleverly kept out of the way that it has been 
Impossible to obtain any inspection of these lists at any stage 
of this proceeding. It has proved equally impossible to get 
any information from Mr. Hoblitzelle concerning the reasons 
why he did not make use of the committee's suggestions or 
any explanation of the reasons why he made the particular 
appointments which became effective. In fact, there is no 
complete record in the Election Commissioner's office to show 
what men acted as judges and clerks, and, it is certain that 
during the period of service in a good many precincts the 
Board of Election officers did not remain the same for even 
any single period of twenty-four hours, many persons who 
actually served as judges or clerks being merely volunteers 
who were really without any authority at all under the law. 

Several hundred of the -men who acted as Republican judges 
and clerks have been called as witnesses in this case. Other 
witnesses have been examined concerning certain men who 
acted as judges and clerks. It is extraordinary what a large 
proportion of these men, put into place as Republicans, were 
recognized by all their acquaintances as staunch Democrats. 
It. is not less remarkable that with almost entire unanimity 
these men, put into responsible places, ostensibly because of 
their own standing as Republicans, being asked if they voted 
the Republican ticket or for any of the Republican candidates 
at this election, either declined to answer the question at all 
or else flatly answered no. The pursuit of the investigation 
as to these judges and clerks shows that in many cases men 
known to be Democrats, having their homes in one ward, be- 
came registered in another ward and were in those other 
places appointed as Republican election officers. We for- 
bear to give references to the pages of the testimony where 
will be found supporting statements of witnesses to establish 
what has been said, because it is almost impossible to open 
the record at any place without having the eye fall upon 
some testimony of this sort. We forbear to make such refer- 
ences for the further reason that the disclosures obtained 
during the recouut concerning the conduct of these judges 
and clerks of themselves amply establish the truth of all 
that is here charged. 

The case of the Sixth Ward is typical. The Republican 
Committeeman here managed to secure the appointment of 
men of his own selection as election officers in about one- 
half of the precincts of the ward. Men not Republicans and 
objected to by him were appointed by the Board in the re- 
maining precincts. 

At the election everything was orderly at the places where 
men selected by the committeeman officiated, while the re- 
cord of riot and wrongdoing at the other precincts in the 
ward is only surpassed by that made in the distinctively But- 
ler wards— viz., the Fourteenth and Twenty-third. 

The testimony of Hoblitzelle attempting to justify the 
selections for the places in this ward where disorder reigned 
and the showing as to the circumstances under which the 
competitive list of judges and clerks put against the sugges- 
tions of the regular committeeman were delivered to the 
Board of Election Commissioners is unique, but it can not 
be said to show observance of that honor which should con- 

97 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

trol public officers entrusted with the duty of managing pub- 
lic elections. (See Record, pp. 525-526, and also p. 1526.) 

Many of the men appoiuted as judges and clerks out of this 
competitive list have on their own showing in this record 
convicted themselves of inefficiency and profligacy. 

The foregoing analysis of the evidence in the Hor- 
ton-Butler case and the grand jury report show con- 
clusively just how "faithfully" the laws have been 
"executed" by appointees of the governor of Missouri 
in St. Louis, in compliance with the constitution. 

EXCISE COMMISSIONER. 
But there is another branch of the state government 
in St. Louis, although in no other part of the state — 
the office of excise commissioner. Referring to this 
office, the Morton grand jury said: 

We consider the position of Excise Commissioner one of 
the most important of any in our city. The position is one 
clothed with great powers, almost of an arbitrary character. 
Where much license and power are given, good judgment 
and integrity of character are necessary qualifications for 
proper service, and this grand jury earnestly requests of 
Hon. A. M. Dockery to give this appointment more than 
usual consideration, with a view of nlliug the place with a 
man of undoubted standing and reputation and business sta- 
bility. We recommend the changing of the law making the 
pay of Excise Commissioner wholly one of salary. 

Attention has been directed to the fact that Gov. A. 
M. Dockery reappointed Harry B. Hawes and James 
McCaffrey as president, respectively, of the St. Louis 
police and election boards, notwithstanding their record 
as presented by the Morton grand jury and the evi- 
dence in the Horton-Butler case. It should be noted 
that in the face of the same honorable grand jury's 
"earnest request" that "the Hon. A. M. Dockery fill 
this place (excise commissioner's office in St. Louis) 
with a man of undoubted standing and reputation and 
business stability," Mr. Dockery appointed James M. 
Seibert first as "temporary" and then as "permanent" 
excise commissioner. (The statute and constitution, 
of course, both provide for "permanent" officers in 
St. Louis.) Incidentally it must be remembered that 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 

although the appointment of "a man of undoubted 
standing" was requested by the Morton grand jury 
for the specific purpose of suppressing the atrocious 
"wine-room evil" in St. Louis, not a single resort of 
this hellish character has been closed since Mr. Sei- 
bert's appointment as excise commissioner. 

POLICE AND STREET RAILWAY STRIKE. 
Again adverting to the record of the Hawes' police 
board during the Stephens' administration. It would 
be incomplete without a reference (lack of space pre- 
vents more) to its conduct during the deplorable and 
disastrous street railway strike in St. Louis early in 
the summer of 1900. Life and property was menaced 
as never before. The police department— that branch 
of the government charged with the responsibility of 
enforcing law and preserving order — was absolutely 
in control of the Hawes' police board. The police 
department had just been reorganized, regardless of 
expense, either as to the number of employes or 
their salaries (the Judson police law placing no re- 
strictions on the police board's authority over the 
city treasury). What did this Hawes' police depart- 
ment do when the first emergency arose calling for 
prompt and efficient work in the protection of life 
and property? Mr. Hawes became the attorney of 
the strikers. Policemen stood in large squads on the 
street corners and indifferently witnessed the destruc- 
tion of life and property and the complete paralysis 
of the business of the city. The person or property of 
employer, employe, publican or merchant prince, in- 
terested or disinterested in the strike, were not fur- 
nished the protection of government guaranteed by the 
constitution and paid for by every taxpayer or taxpay- 
er's patron. Thus was the efficiency of the Hawes' 
police department, or Jefferson Club machine, tested! 
Such was and ever will be the logical result of the 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

prostitution of governmental agencies to private, per- 
sonal or political ends! And yet A. M. Dockery re- 
appointed Harry B. Hawes president of the St. Louis 
police board. 

RECORD OF THE DOCKERY MACHINES. 

But Mr. Hawes' record and that of the police and 
election boards have been told only insofar as they 
relate to the Stephens' administration. How about 
the conduct of the police and election boards, or ma- 
chines, since Gov. Dockery's inauguration and their 
reappointment? Just as these machines were used to 
steal the election in St. Louis in November, 1900, for 
A. M. Dockery for governor, "Jim" Butler for con- 
gress and to make Republican votes in the legislature 
from St. Louis fewer, to prevent amendment of the 
cheating Nesbit and police laws, so were the same 
Hawes' police and McCaffrey election machines used 
by A. M. Dockery and David R. Francis to force the 
nomination of Rolla Wells, a Democratic bolter and 
Francis' protege, for World's Fair mayor upon the 
Democratic party. Zach Tinker, Mr. W r ells' opponent 
for the nomination, publicly charged that the pri- 
maries had been dominated by the Hawes police ma- 
chine in the interest of Rolla Wells. 

WORLD'S FAIR MAYOR ELECTION. 

But the April election for World's Fair mayor! 
Gov. Dockery, acting in accord with Ed Butler, David 
R. Francis and his personal organ, the St. Louis Re- 
public, prevented any amendment of the Nesbit law 
that would permit a revision of the padded registra- 
tion list referred to by the Morton grand jury. In 
October, 1901, 19,100 names were stricken from the 
registration lists. Is it possible that 100,000 citizens 
(one voter is supposed to represent a family of five' 

100 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 

persons) removed from St. Louis or died between the 
April, 1901, or last municipal election, and October, 
1901, charter amendments election? Now, remember! 
All these spurious 20,000 names were kept on the 
registration lists by A. M. Dockery (in whose interest 
they had been voted the previous November) and 
Rolla Wells was elected World's Fair mayor of St. 
Louis not only with such registration lists determin- 
ing the citizens' right to vote, but with Hoblitzelle 
judges and clerks of election that had served at the 
preceding November election and who originally 
padded and canvassed the padded registration lists 
and who have since been twice indicted. Read the 
following extracts from the February grand jury re- 
port, presented on March 29. 1901, that body, like its 
predecessor, having been thoroughly representative 
of the best citizenship of St. Louis; Mr. C. F. Blanke, 
a leading business man, having been foreman: 

BLANKE GRAND JURY REPORT. 

In compliance with your instructions, we have given much 
time and careful consideration to the investigation; of the reg- 
istration and election frauds. We are appalled, as our pre- 
decessors no doubt were, at the unmistakable evidence of the 
most flagrant, defiant and audacious violations of the sanc- 
tity of the ballot-box, that were committed in the election 
on November 6, last. 

THE DOCKERY ELECTION. 

It was in evidence before us that fraudulent registration 
was carried on to a very great degree, we believe that many 
thousand fictitious names were put upon the registration 
hooks, and a very large number of these fictitious names 
were voted. 

While it is practically impossible to. get the names and find 
indictment against all the persons guilty of perpetrating these 
frauds, we can not but feel that great carelessness, if noth- 
ing more, was practiced by the authorities, in permitting 
these serious violations of the law. 

It was in evidence before us that even greater carelessness 
and, in many instances, flagrant violation of the law was 
committed by some of the judges and clerks of the election, 
In connection with the revision of the registration lists, which 
were held at the precinct booths on the 16th day of March, 
1901. 

101 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



JUDGES AND CLERKS INDICTED. 

The law provides that the clerks shall canvass together, 
each election precinct, each clerk having a copy of the list 
of the original registration, and report to the judges of elec- 
tion sitting as a board of revision, the names of all persons 
not found in their respective precinct personally or who do 
not respond to notices left at their address to show cause 
why their names shall not be stricken from the registration 
list. In niany instances the clerks have not performed 
their duty, and in many others the judges have refused to 
make the erasures and corrections that were found neces- 
sary in order to purge the registration list of the illegal 
voters. In every such case where the evidence was found 
sufficient, we have found indictments for neglect of duty. 
There is evidence of a number of cases of incompetency on 
the part of precinct election officers which should and we be- 
lieve could be avoided, if an honest effort were made by all 
political parties to appoint only qualified persons to serve 
as precinct election officers. 

From the evidence presented to us, we believe there is a 
well organized band of men, mostly those known as police 
characters, with many aliases, without home or permanent 
place of abode, who svstematically vote on fictitious names, 
that are on the registration lists. These men, we believe, 
are led and directed by trusted lieutenants of certain promi- 
nent politicians, who are more culpable than the real per- 
petrators of these crimes against the sanctity of the ballot. 
We made great effort to get specific evidence against these 
illegal voters, and present indictments against them, but, 
owing to their many aliases and migratory natures, our 
efforts were rewarded in but few cases. ' 

As previously stated, we regard the leaders and insti- 
gators of these crimes as most culpable. We endeavored to 
obtain the evidence that would justify indictments against 
these arch conspirators, but were unable to get enough of 
such evidence as is required by the courts to convict. 

We cannot conceive of a more serious state of affairs than 
that which existed in this city at the time of the election 
in November, and which we believe still exists to a very 
great extent. 

We feel it our duty as the only official body having juris- 
diction in such matters to call the attention of all honest 
citizens to this appalling state of affairs, with the hope that 
public sentiment may be aroused. We would suggest that all 
judges, clerks and challengers, and all citizens who are in- 
terested in honest eections. make use of every opportunity 
that mav be lawful, to obtain clear and specific evidence of 
individual cases of fraud and by making memoranda at the 
time, or as soon after as may be. of names, dates and places, 
or bv charging their minds with the facts and presenting 
such' information to the Grand Jury or to the courts to the 
end that such frauds may be punished. 

FUTURE ELECTIONS FRAUDULENT. 

We deem it our duty to inform the public that the regis- 
tration books ns now constituted under the present law, must 
remain ns thev are for four years, with only such revision 
as that provided for from time to time by the precinct elec- 

102 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 



tiou judges, sitting as a board of revision. Unless these 
periodical revisions are carried out more thoroughly, effect- 
ively and honestly than those that' were brought to our at- 
tention in the revision of March 16, it will be possible for 
much of the illegal voting of last November to be repeated at 
subsequent elections. We believe that illegal voting can be 
reduced to a minimum if the managers and candidates of 
all political parties will unite in issuing a strong public decla- 
ration to the criminal classes, to perpetrators of frauds at 
elections, in the interest of any party or candidate, that they 
will be summarily dealt with. 

We recognize that the purity of the ballot box is the safe- 
guard of the Republic and cannot condemn in too emphatic 
language any attempt to prostitute the honesty of our elec- 
tions. We would recommend that persons should not be al- 
lowed to register until they had resided in the election pre- 
cinct six months or over preceding an election, and the regis- 
tration books should be closed sixty days before each elec- 
tion, and a complete list of the registry should be printed 
and posted at the polling places at least ten days prior to 
the election. 

The following indictments were returned: 

Moses Bajeech, Joseph Sheridan, J. P. Evans, and Diedrich 

Norden, neglect of duty as judge of election. 
Frank Carraher and John Tracy, neglect of duty as clerk of 

election. 
E. J. Coff, John W. Whalen and Edward Perringer, neglect 

of duty as judge of election. 
Joseph Franklin, James W. Johnson, Chas. J. Bonroe and 

Frank Owen, neglect of duty as judge of election. 
Bernard Fries, John J. Maurer, Adolph Eppinger and John 

J. Callahan, neglect of duty as judge of election. 
H. F. Hodnet, Edward 1. Feehan, Joseph Reis and Joseph 

Watts, neglect of duty as judge of election. 
C. L. Hogan, unlawfully acting as challenger. 
Michael J. Kelly, Michael E. McFadden, Charles Brnetner 

and Fred Vogelsang, neglect of duty as judge of election. 
Paul F. Mohan and Otto H. Kohrs, neglect of duty as judge 

of election. 
Patrick McDermott and Edward Rice, neglect of duty as 

clerk of election. 
Charles Steffey and Albert G. Smith, neglect of duty as clerk 

of election. 

The foregoing grand jury report was presented on 
March 29, 1901, as stated. The election for World's 
Fair mayor of St. Louis was held three days later. 

103 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

The following effective card appeared in a St. Louis 
afternoon paper on March 30, two days prior to the 
election: 



®®(*Xi)®®®®(-^^ 



THE GRAND JURY VS. WELLS 



ROLLA WELLS: 

"But if the Nesbit law was ever objectionable, 
those objections have now been removed by 
amendments by a Democratic State Legislature, 
and, according to the testimony of all disinter- 
ested persons, NO BETTER ELECTION 
LAW EXISTS IN ANY STATE IN THE 
UNION."— Rolla Wells, from The Republic, 
March 21. 

"The Governor of our State signed the bill as 
amended and it is now a law, and I WILL 
TELL YOU THERE IS NO FAIRER 
ELECTION LAW IN THE COUNTRY." 

— Rolla Wells, from The Republic, March 24. 



THE GRAND JURY: 

"We can not conceive of a more serious state 
of affairs than that which existed in this city at 
the time of the election in November, AND 
WHICH WE BELIEVE STILL EXISTS 
TO A VERY GREAT EXTENT. 

"We feel it our duty as the only official body 
having jurisdiction in such matters to call the 
attention of all honest citizens to this appalling 
state of affairs with the hope that public senti- 
ment may be aroused. — Grand Jury Report of 
March 29. 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 

EVEN THE NESBIT LAW VIOLATED. 

The January grand jury told the people of the 
glaring frauds and outrages perpetrated by the Ste- 
phens-Dockery election and police boards, directed 
by State Chairman Seibert, in the November, 1900, 
election. The February grand jury corroborated its 
predecessor's findings and added much more, indicting 
judges and clerks who had officiated at the November 
election. The April grand jury indicted three judges 
and one clerk for making false returns, one man for 
fraudulent voting and one for voting in two precincts 
at the April election. 

But the most high-handed outrage perpetrated under 
the supervision and responsibility of the Stephens- 
Dockery election and police boards in St. Louis was 
the prevention of regularly commissioned Republican 
judges and clerks from officiating at the April elec- 
tion. These clerks had been appointed in place of 
criminal election officers, after the hardest kind of a 
fight at the session of the 1901 legislature. Governor 
Dockery consented to an amendment of the Nesbit 
law providing for the appointment of new judges and 
clerks for the April election With the readiness and 
eagerness which characterizes a child when he is 
about to have a tooth drawn. But while the gov- 
ernor reluctantly consented to so amend the Nesbit 
law, after he had done so, his police and election 
boards made certain that the new judges and clerks 
did not serve in many precincts, and that those who 
had served at the November election and some who 
had been twice indicted for fraud, did serve in their 
places. The list of those Republican judges and 
clerks commissioned under the amended Nesbit law 
who were not permitted to officiate at the April elec- 
tion when Rolla Wells was declared to have been 
elected World's Fair mayor of St. Louis follows. It 

105 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

is noted by representative citizens in the closing days 
of the year 1901 as a remarkable circumstance that 
Mayor Wells seems determined to place the responsi- 
bility for the nse of improper anti-toxin in St. Louis, 
the defendant city official being a Republican, but 
although infamous and established frauds and crimes 
were committed by the Democratic police and election 
officers when Rolla Wells was given the certificate 
of election, he has been silent as to responsibility or 
as to the facts in the case. Rolla Wells is ex-officio 
a member of the St. Louis police board, but as the 
same Rolla Wells was the beneficiary of the frauds 
and crimes perpetrated by the Democratic police and 
election department in the April election, of course 
Rolla Wells has nothing to say about fixing the re- 
sponsibility. Here is a list of the Republican judges 
and clerks who were prevented by Democratic election 
officials and the Democratic Jefferson Club police 
from serving at the April election, even the Nesbit 
law not being "faithfully executed" by the governor, 
as the constitution requires: 



DESPOTIC RULE IN MISSOURI. 



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JVESBIT AJMJ) POLICE LAWS. 



DOCKERY AM) BUTLER PREVENTED EFFECTIVE 

AMENDMENT OF DISFRANCHISING ACTS 

AT LAST LEGISLATIVE SESSION. 



Amendments Submitted by Republicans and 
tbe Democratic Caucus Bill. 



Sam Cook's Attempt to Insure Honest Elections 
Frustrated by Dockery. 



REPUBLICANS APPEAL, TO WASHINGTON, BUT ARE 
BETRAYED BY "FRANCIS REPUBLICANS." 



Election of a Republican Legislature and Supreme Court 
in 1903 the Only Remedy. 



Much has been written and said about the "in- 
famous", "cheating", "outrageous", "disfranchising" 
Nesbit or "Goebel" election law of Missouri. The 
adjectives applied to that statute cannot be made too 
expressive or too numerous to convey to the honest 
citizen's mind the true character and intent of a 
measure deliberately designed, with its twin com- 
panion — the St. Louis police law — to destroy the 
precious constitutional or American right of suffrage 
in St. Louis, and thereby nullify the expressed will 
of the so-called "sovereign" people of Missouri out- 
side of St. Louis. 

If there is such a thing as a "paramount" issue in 
politics or public affairs, that issue at this time must 

109 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

certainly be the Nesbit and kindred disfranchising 
laws in Missouri. The right to vote and to have the 
citizen's ballot counted as cast is the basis, the very- 
corner-stone of the American system of popular and 
representative government. What does or can it 
avail the public welfare if after convicting unworthy 
public servants the people are deprived of the means 
to punish them — the citizen's ballot? Therefore, it 
follows that as vital as are the pending issues, such 
as the misapplication and unconstitutional use of the 
state school and interest funds and the perpetuation 
of the state debt, the unconstitutional system of in- 
direct or unlimited taxation, etc., none amounts to a 
hill of beans if the sovereign people are denied their 
only means to redress the wrongs' committed by their 
governmental agents or ministers. 

It is of not the slightest consequence what the 
vote of the state outside of St. Louis, Kansas City and 
St. Joseph may be (the latter two cities also have 
partisan state election and police laws) the designers 
and manipulators of the Nesbit and police laws, ap- 
plicable to St. Louis alone, can hold back the returns 
in St. Louis until the discredited "state-house ring'' 
has heard from the rural districts of the state, and 
then manufacture a '"greatly reduced" Republican 
plurality or a "sweeping" Democratic majority in St. 
Louis, as the "ring's" needs require. 

ENTIRE STATE AFFECTED. 

Therefore, while the Nesbit and police laws apply 
alone to St. Louis, they vitally concern every village 
and hamlet in the state, and not until every fair- 
minded citizen of Missouri— from McDonald to Clark 
County and from Pemiscot to Atchison — regardless 
of his political convictions, votes to send legislators 
to Jefferson City to wipe the Nesbit and police laws 
off the statute books, the "state-house ring" will con- 
no 



NESBIT AND POLICE LAWS. 

tinue to perpetuate itself in power. As long as these 
laws remain in force the "ring" can count out an 
unlimited number of Republican votes and count in 
an unlimited number of Democratic votes in St. Louis 
and thereby destroy the force and effect of every vote 
cast outside of St. Louis against the "state-house 
ring" and all that that designation means in Missouri. 
But elect Republican members to the next legis- 
lature and three Republican judges on the Supreme 
bench and you repeal the iniquitous election and police 
laws. The right to cast one vote and have that vote 
counted as cast once restored in all the large cities, 
the party in power — Democratic, Republican, Populist, 
Municipal Ownership, or any other— can not and will 
not betray their public trust with impunity. Such 
dominant party will ever know that a day of reckon- 
ing is sure to come and that to again receive a vote 
of confidence from a majority of the people of the 
state it must go before such people with a record 
showing it has respected, not violated or betrayed 
that confidence. 

You say: "If the 'state-house ring' can count us out 
all over the state by counting out the Republican 
votes of St. Louis, what's the use of voting at all?" 

The answer is simple. The "state-house ring" can 
do that in St. Louis in the election of a state ticket, or 
member of congress from one of the St. Louis districts; 
but the "ring" cannot count in more representatives 
and senators in the state legislature from St. Louis 
than the constitution allows. Sixteen members in the 
house and six senators is the allotment to the city 
of St. Louis under the new apportionment. Three of 
the senators from St. Louis — Smith (Rep.), Collins 
(Dent.), and Schoenlaub (Dem.), are "holdovers," so 
only three senators are to be elected from St. Louis 
next November. As there are 140 members in the 

m 



STATU REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

house and 3 in the senate, with seventeen of the lat- 
ter to eleet every two years and all of the former, the 
rural districts have it in their power to determine 
whether election and police laws shall remain on the 
statute hooks to enable the "state-house ring'' to count 
out Republicans, Silver Democrats, Populists, Mu- 
nipal Ownership Party followers or any class of citi- 
zens not in sympathy with its unconstitutional and 
ruinous policies and practices. Moreover, unless all 
political parties save the one that indorses the "ring" 
and it will not be a majority of the honest Democrats 
next November) join in electing an anti-Nesbit law 
legislature, no party can cast and have counted its 
vote as cast in St. Louis, Kansas City and St. Joseph 
in the future. More than this, it will be a question 
of only a short time before the "state-house ring" 
applies the Nesbit and police and excise and other 
imperialistic laws to the smaller cities and counties 
of the state, if the "ring" is sustained by such coun- 
ties and cities in the perpetration of its villainies and 
the abuse of delegated power. 

It was the rare privilege and opportunity of the 
editor of this book to fight the Nesbit law in its in- 
ception at Jefferson City, to vigorously oppose it and 
its creatures and defenders on the stump and in the 
G lobe-Democrat in the last campaign and to fight 
hard against the greatest odds for its repeal or amend- 
ment at the last session of the legislature. Conse- 
quently the record that follows can be depended upon 
as correct and comprehensive, although lack of space 
limits it to a certain extent. 

NESBIT AND POLICE LAWS. 

On page 16, last State Republican campaign book— 
the "Hand-book on Missouri Politics" — will be found 
the following: 

"Home rule" is a cardinal principle of Democracy. The 
Democratic platform declares "in favor of local self-govern- 

112 



NESP.TT AND POLICE LAWS. 



ment." The party that adopted this platform enacted the 
Nesbit law a little more than a year ago. It thereby placed 
the election machinery of St. Louis in the hands of one man— 
the Governor. He may disfranchise any number of voters 
at will. How? Read: 

Section 3. Such election commissioner ( appointed by the 
Governor) shall appoint and commission one deputy elec- 
tion commissioner, who shall hold his office during the 
pleasure of said commissioners, and shall be vested with all 
the powers and duties of the commissioners during their 
absence, sickness or inability to perform tbeir duties : said 
deputy election commissioner shall also be the secretary of 
the board of election commissioners. (Nesbit Law,) 

The same democratic party enacted a new police law for 
St. Louis. This act opens the city treasury to a Police Board 
appointed by the Governor. No restriction whatever is 
placed upon the amount this board may appropriate. The 
Municipal Assembly is compelled to make the appropriation 
demanded. (It will do so or go to jail.) Similar laws were 
enacted by the same Democratic party for Kansas City, but 
not quite so drastic. 

The consequences of the operation of the Nesbit 
and police laws are pointed out in successive grand 
jury reports and in the sworn testimony in the 
Horton-Butler twelfth congressional district election 
contest. Lack of space and time prevents more than a 
brief analysis of the Nesbit law, the attempt to amend 
it and the police law at the last session of the legis- 
lature and the result. 

That the public may know where the responsibility 
belongs for failure to amend the Nesbit law so as to 
insure an honest election for World's Fair mayor, 
and all other elections in St. Louis, including state, 
the following data is published, taken from the official 
dockets (1901) of the house and senate: 

January 16.— Amendment to St. Louis Police Law. 

Senate bill 61, introduced by Senator Rollins (Rep.), of St. 
Louis, providing that no police officer shall, at any election 
precinct intimidate, assault or drive away from the polls 
any qualified voter, or prevent, or attempt to prevent, any 
such lawful voter from exercising his elective franchise, or 
shall disobey any lawful order of a judge of election, etc. 
Read first time on January 6, reported unfavorably on Janu- 
ary 30, and "laid over informally" January 31, since which 
time nothing has been heard of the bill. 

Amendment to Nesbit Election Law; 

January 17— Senate Bill 72, introduced by Senator Rollins 
(Rep.), providing that" at least sixty days prior to the first 
city or state election after this act becomes; a law, such board 

8 113 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

of election commissioners shall select and choose four elec- 
ors as judges of election for each precinct in such city" and 
two clerks of election for each precinct, two of said judges 
and one of said clerks to be members of the party of oppo- 
site politics to the other two judges and clerks and the 
judges and clerks to be selected by the election commission- 
ers from lists of six names for each precinct, to be sub- 
mitted by the respective city central committees. This bill 
also provided for the filling of vacancies in the list of judges 
and clerks, and contained an emergency clause. It was passed 
on February 5, but after a Democratic caucus had been held 
in the House, at which sham amendments were adopted, 
the Rollins bill was indefinitely postponed in the House. 

Amendment to St. Louis Police Law: 

February 8— House Bill 497, introduced by Mr. Wilson 
(Rep.), of St. Louis, being a duplicate of the Rollins bill pro- 
hibiting police interference at the polls. Unfavorably re- 
ported on March 1, since which time it has been "dead." 

Amendment to Nesbit Election Law: 

February 8— House Bill 498, introduced by Mr. Wilson 
(Rep.), providing for the appointment of Republican judges 
and clerks by a Republican commissioner appointed by the 
Democratic Governor, without ratification by the Democratic 
majority of the board, with the Republican commissioner 
vested with power to fill vacancies where they occur in the 
list of Republican judges and clerks. Reported unfavorably 
on March 1, and "dead" ever since. 

Amendment to Nesbit Election Law: 

February 8— House Bill 509, introduced by Mr. Wilson 
(Rep.), providing that the election commissioners shall, on 
Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the week prior to the 
week in which a general or presidential election is held, sit 
as a board of appeals, to place upon the registry any person 
Improperly refused registration by the precinct officer, or 
those whose names were wrongfully stricken from the regis- 
try. This bill abolished that clause in the Nesbit law which 
authorizes the election board, sitting as a board of appeals, 
to "register as qualified voters such persons as may make 
application who failed to appear before the board of regis- 
tration because of sickness, forgetfulness, absence from the 
city or other reasonable cause at the time of precinct regis- 
tration." This bill was unfavorably reported on March 5 
and "killed." 

February 11— House Bill 510, introduced by Mr. Pareira, of 
St. Louis, re-enacting that section of the election law of 1895 
providing for the confirmation of judges and clerks appointed 
by the election commissioners by the circuit court. The bill 
was unfavorably reported on February 28, and nothing has 
been heard of it since. 

To repeal the Nesbit Election Law: 

February 11— House Bill 548, introduced by Mr. Abercrom- 
ble (Rep.), of St. Joseph, re-enacting the entire election law 
of 1895, passed by a Democratic Senate and a Republican 
House and signed by a Democratic Governor— William J. 
Stone. This bill was drafted by the St. Louis Public Safety 
Committee, composed of one hundred representative citizens 
of both of the dominant political parties. It was advocated 
by the St. Louis Republic and passed at an extra session of 
the legislature, called by Governor Stone. Republicans as 

114 



NESBIT AND POLICE LAWS. 



well as Democrats were commended by the Republic, editor- 
ially, for their creditable work in pacing the election law 
of '95 on the statute books. No complaint was ever filed 
against it save the criticism that Julius Wurtzburger was ap- 
pointed as the Republican Election Commissioner, and under 
his minority administration it was charged that the two 
Democratic Election Commissioners were controlled and the 
election made fraudulent because of his overpowering influ- 
ence as one of the three members of the Election Board. 
As much as the Republic has criticised Wurtzburger, it has 
never mentioned the fact that when he was appointed as the 
Republican Commissioner, Hugh Brady, one of the most 
notorious election manipulators in St. Louis, was appointed 
as one of the Democratic Commissioners. The Abercrpmbie 
bill was voted down by the House majority when offered as 
an amendment to the Democratic caucus bill. 



DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS BILL. 

What amendments to the Nesbit law did the Demo- 
crats adopt in a secret caucus? Here they are: 

1. An amendment abolishing the office of "Deputy Election 
Commissioner," making Clarence Hoblitzelle secretary of the 
Election Board, with power to "exercise a general super- 
visory control and direction over the office and clerical force 
appointed by said Commissioners, subject to such rules and 
regulations as the board may, from time to time, provide." 
The forgery of the election returns last April (1901), giving 
the control of the House of Delegates to the Democrats, was 
committed under this new arrangement. The forgery was 
proved and acknowledged, but neither Mayor Wells nor 
Gov. Dockery placed the responsibility, another illustration 
of how the laws of Missouri are not "faithfully executed," 
as the constitution requires of the Governor. 

2. An amendment providing that "such Board of Election 
Commisioners shall at least sixty days prior to the first city 
or state election after this act becomes a law," select and 
choose judges and clerks. Just three weeks remained before 
the April (1801) election, so that new judges and clerks could 
not be appointed for that election under that amendment. 
That the authors of the Democratic caucus bill were not un- 
mindful of the April election is shown by the emergency 
clause attached to the caucus bill. In other words, the caucus 
bill declared that judges and clerks should be appointed, 
but at least sixty days before the April election— an impos- 
sibility. 

Ed Butler wanted the indicted November judges 
and clerks for Rolla Wells, and as D. R. Francis 
wanted Wells elected, Governor Dockery gave Mr. 
Butler what he wanted, although making a pretense 
at amending the law so as to appease an outraged 
community. 

115 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



3. An amendment authorizing the election board to sit as a 
hoard of appeals on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the 
week prior to the week of the election, with authority to 
hear appeals of persons whose names had been stricken from 
the registration lists, or who had been denied the right to 
register. 

4. An amendment wiping out registration at the City Hall 
between the completion "of the registration— three days be- 
fore the April election— and the next following election. 

5. An amendment providing for the pay of judges and 
clerks of election and registration and clerks and assistants 
employed by the election board (not limited) out of the city 
treasury, as well as the salaries of $2,500 a year for each of 
the three election commissioners, $2,000 for the secretary and 
"all office and other expenses incurred by said board of elec- 
tion commissioners, and all office and other expenses and all 
costs and expense of registration and election in said eiry." 

SAM COOK FOR HONEST ELECTIONS. 

To the credit of Sam B. Cook, secretary of state, be 
it said that be favored an honest and fair amend- 
ment of the Nesbit law and before the senate election 
committee he advocated the following changes in 
the Democratic caucus bill: 

No. 1. Striking out the provision in the caucus bill provid- 
ing for ratification by the Democratic commissioners of the 
Republican judges and clerks selected by the Republican 
commissioner named by the Democratic Governor. 

2d. An amendment providing for the removal of the Re- 
publican judges and clerks by the Republican members, of 
the Board for cause. 

3d. An amendment striking out the words "at least sixty 
days prior to the first city or state election after this act 
becomes a law," and inserting in lieu thereof the words "as 
early as practicable." 

4th. An amendment providing that "on Tuesday and Wed- 
nesday of the week prior to the week in which the city elec- 
tion is to be held, in the year 1901, said election commis- 
sioners shall sit as a revision board and shall take up and 
consider and act on any applications to have names erased 
from the register of any precinct and they shall consider 
and act on all applications that are then presented in the 
form specified in section 7237, Revised Statutes, and in cases 
where satisfactory evidence is furnished to sustain the 
charges in such applications, such board may strike out 
any such name or names from the register. Immediately 
after acting as such board of appeals, said election commis- 
sioners shall cause supplemental lists of names to be stricken 
from or added to the register to be printed and published 
in the form and manner specified in section 7228. The register 
and supplemental list of voters may be inspected and copied 
at any time during business hours by an orderly and respect- 
able person." 

116 



NESBIT AND POLICE LAWS. 



In a few words, the amendments alvocated by the Demo- 
cratic Secretary of State before the Democratic election com- 
mittee of the Senate, provided for the appointment of Re- 
publican judges and clerks of election by tb.e Republican 
commissioner; provided for the removal of Republican judges 
and clerks for sufficient cause by the Republican commis- 
sioner provided for the appointment of new judges and 
clerks to supersede the discredited November (1900) judges 
and clerks for the April (1901) election: provided for a revision 
of the padded registration lists of November, 1900, for the 
April, 1901, election; and finally provided for the publication 
of revised registration lists and the supplemental registration 
lists for the information of the citizens of St. Louis. 

The Democratic caucus bill does not change the discredited 
election machinery of November, 1900, in the least. Even 
the "bluff" originally suggested in the way of an attempt 
to abolish city hall registration was not made good in the 
caucus bill, as will be observed by the following provision: 

Section 7226. Said election commissioners shall have the 
power and are hereby authorized to register any person or 
persons in sa'd office of election commissioners, and re-regis- 
ter or transfer any person or persons who may have changed 
their residence from one ward to another ward, or from one 
precinct to another in any ward, at any time, except on such 
day or days on which a precinct registration may be held in 
said city, and except such days as intervene between the 
completion of the registration herein provided for and the 
next following election; a change of residence from one place 
in a precinct to another place or part thereof shall not neces- 
sitate a re-registration or transfer, or deprive the registered 
voter of his right to vote in said precinct. Such registration 
of voters shall be done in the same form and manner (at the 
City Hall), and in the same books as provided for the regis- 
tration of voters in the precincts by the judges of election 
sitting as a board of registration in such precincts." 

Precinct registration on March 16, the only regis- 
tration in the various precincts in the city provided 
for the April (1901) election, was conducted by the 
judges nnd clerks who padded the lists in November, 
1900 The three days' canvassing provided for by 
the Nesbit law was conducted by the discredited No- 
vember clerks, who canvassed and endorsed the work 
of the judges and clerks who padded the registration 
lists in November, 1900. Subsequently, under oath, 
Harry B. Hawes testified that the registration in the 
main was done under the supervision of the Jefferson 
Club. And A. M. Dockery and Rolla Wells were 
the beneficiaries of these padded registration lists, 
from which 19,100 names were stricken in October, 
1901. 

117 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

PLANNED TO STEAL ELECTIONS. 

It will be noticed that all of the amendments to the 
infamous Nesbit law submitted by Republicans at 
the 1901 session of the legislature were offered in the 
months of January and February, in plenty of time 
to enable the Dockery administration and the Demo- 
cratic majority in the general assembly to change 
the Nesbit law and insure an honest election for 
World's Fair mayor if it was not the palpable and 
persistent purpose of the machine democracy and 
the St. Louis Republic crowd to steal the election in 
April and give Rolla Wells the certificate of the office 
of mayor, whether honestly elected or not. 

The delay in amending the Nesbit law so that judges 
and clerks convicted of fraud in the November elec- 
tion might be removed before precinct registration 
and canvassing and revision thereof was held, cannot 
be attributed to any act of the Republican representa- 
tives in the legislature. For the first time the St. 
Louis Republic acknowledged the necessity of a pro- 
vision for removal of indicted Hoblitzelle judges and 
clerks in the Nesbit law on March 11, 1901, when 
precinct registration was to be held on March 12, 
canvassing on March 13, 14 and 15, and revision on 
March 16. 

Governor Dockery was advised of the fact that the 
discredited and grand-jury-denounced and indicted 
November judges and clerks could not be removed 
under the Nesbit law in February, 1901. All of the 
amendments introduced in the legislature, except the 
election law of 1895, were submitted to him for con- 
sideration in February. A public interview was 
sought from the governor the same day (in February) 
a Globe-Democrat correspondent interviewed former 
Governor W. J. Stone on the election law of 1895 
and its successor, the Nesbit act, in which interview 

118 



NESBIT AND POLICE LAWS. 

Gov. Stone pronounced the election law of 1895 
eminently fair and the Nesbit law undesirable. Gov- 
ernor Dockery, however, declined to be interviewed, 
saying he would send any communication he had on 
the subject to the general assembly. 

PETITION TO WASHINGTON. 

The determination of Governor Dockery, acting un- 
der the direction of the St. Louis Republic, its director 
— David R. Francis — and Col. Ed. Butler, to prevent 
amendment of the Nesbit and police laws restoring 
the right of suffrage in St. Louis, being so apparent, 
the following petition was circulated among the Re- 
publican members of the legislature for their approval 
and signature, both of which it received almost unani- 
mously, lacking one vote: 

To the Hon. William McKinley, President of the United 
States, Washington, D. C. 

Jefferson City, Mo., Feb. 27, 1901.— The undersigned Re- 
publican members of the House and Senate of the Forty- 
first General Assembly of Missouri, respectfully invite your 
attention to the following condition that confronts the Re- 
publican party of this state and menaces its very life: 

The last General Assembly, Democratic in both branches, 
enacted two laws— the Nesbit election and police acts— appli- 
cable to St. Louis alone, designed to deprive qualified voters 
of that city and the state of the right to exercise the elective 
franchise. The motive underlying this legislation was the 
perpetuation of the discredited Democratic state administra- 
tion. Having lost the confidence of the honest and intelli- 
gent citizenship of the rural districts, the "State-house-ring" 
decided to no longer trust their case in the hands of the 
citizens of such districts. Accordingly, means were pro- 
vided, through the enactment of the Nesbit and police 
laws, to construct state machines in St. Louis— election and 
police boards appointed by the Democratic governor— which, 
with the excise commissioner, the Democratic state chair- 
man, also appointed by the Governor, and having absolute 
authority to issue and revoke all saloon licenses, could com- 
pletely dominate all elections— national, state and municipal— 
in St. Louis. The Nesbit and police laws vest in the boards 
mentioned unrestricted power over the entire election ma- 
chinery and paraphernalia, as well as the police department 
of St. Louis, since organized into the Jefferson Club, with 
Mr. Harry B. Hawes, president of the police board, presi- 
dent of the Jefferson Club. Thus fortified with absolute con- 
trol over the election returns, the state machines in St. Louis 
can and did hold back the election returns las,t November 

119 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 



until they ascertained the result in the rural districts, outside 
of St. Louis. The consequence was, Mr. President, that your 
splendid majority in St. Louis of 15,600, in 1896, was con- 
verted into a plurality of 666 in St. Louis «n 1900, although 
you gained nearly twenty thousand votes on Mr. Bryan in 
Missouri outside of St. Louis in 1900. The Hon. Joseph Flory, 
Republican nominee for Governor, also scored gains in one 
hundred of the one hundred and fourteen counties of the 
state, the average ratio of which, if applied to your majority 
in St. Louis in 1896, would have given him and you a ma- 
jority in St. Louis in 1900 of not less than twenty thousand, 
if not twenty-five thousand instead of 666 and 4100 respect- 
ively. 

But that is not all. We are on the eve of a municipal elec- 
tion in St. Louis, to chose a candidate for mayor during the 
coming World's Fair, in 1903. Alexander M. Dockery has 
been elected Governor of Missouri through the manipulation 
of the returns in St. Louis by the Nesbit law and police 
law state boards, assisted by the Democratic state chairman, 
since appointed excise commissioner of St. Louis by Gov. 
Dockery. The chief executive of the state has also recently 
reappointed Messrs. Hawes and McCaffrey president, re- 
spectively, of the police and election boards, denounced by a 
representative Grand Jury and held responsible for the most 
atrocious election outrages ever perpetrated in a civilized 
community, during the last November election, referred to. 

Not only has Governor Dockery sustained, reappointed and 
enlarged the original Nesbit and police machines in St. Louis, 
but he has persistently and effectually restrained fair and 
reasonable amendment of the Nesbit and police laws (printed 
heretofore), restoring the right of suffrage in St. Louis, at 
the present session of the legislature. More than this, the 
reappointed election and police machines have been used to 
force the nomination of the St. Louis Republic's candidate, 
Mr. Rolla Wells, a protege of D. R. Francis, who controls 
the Republic, upon the Democratic party for World's Fair 
mayor of St. Louis. Mr. Well's opponent for the nomina- 
tion, Mr. Zach Tinker, a representative citizen, has charged 
in the public prints that the police robbed him of the nom- 
ination at the Democratic primaries. 

In view of all these facts, and the further fact that if 
these machines are continued in power and the Nesbit and 
police laws remain on the statute books, all elections held in 
St. Louis in the future will be controlled bv the state ma- 
chines and those who use them, and because if Republicans 
cannot cast and have counted their votes as cast in St. 
Louis, normally a Republican stronghold, they can never 
hope to carry Missouri, or elect members of Congress from 
the Twelfth, or Butler district We, as representatives of the 
Republican party of the entire state in the General Assem- 
bly, earnestly urge you to demand, as a condition precedent 
to the passage of the World's Fair bill, bv a Republican con- 
gress and its signature by a Republican president, the imme- 
diate adoption of the amendments to the Nesbit election and 
police laws now pending before the legislature, repealing one 
and amending Hip other of such Iniquitous statutes and re- 
enacting the non-partisan and unobjectionable election law of 
1S95. 

120 



NESBIT AND POLICE LAWS. 



We suggest this drastic course simply because nothing re- 
mains to save the Republican party from continued defeat in 
St. Louis and the public at large from lasting disgrace. 
Moreover, we do not believe that any American municipality 
is available for the holding of a World's Fair in which the 
highest and fundamental right of American citizenship is 
denied. 

Inasmuch as David R. Francis is the head of the World's 
Fair lobby now urging the passage of the Fair bill in Wash- 
ington, we are satisfied that one word from him sent to the 
government at the state capital will result in wiping off the 
statue books of Missouri the infamous disfranchising laws 
mentioned. We therefore, respectfully submit this presenta- 
tion of facts and the accompanying suggestion not to injure 
or prevent the holding a World's Fair in St. Louis in 1903, or 
any other year, but to insist upon the enjoyment of the con- 
stitutional right to vote and have the citizen's vote counted 
as cast in St. Louis, as well as in any other part of Mis- 
souri or of the United States, where a representative form 
of government prevails. 

Yours very respectfully, 

BETRAYAL BY FRANCIS REPUBLICANS. 

The foregoing petition was signed by all the Re- 
publican members of the legislature present except 
Representative John H. Bothwell, of Sedalia, the lat- 
ter being handicapped because he had a bill pending 
providing for an appropriation for a state fair. One 
copy of the petition was wired to Hon. Ethan Allen 
Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior, and another 
mailed to Hon. Richard C. Kerens, Republican Na- 
tional Committeeman from Missouri. Telegrams were 
sent to Speaker Henderson. of the National House of 
Representatives; Senator Frye, president pro tern of 
the U. S. Senate; to Senators Lodge and Depew, 
Senate conferees on the World's Fair bill, and to Hon. 
Marcus A. Hanna, chairman of the National Repub- 
lican Committee, as well as to the St. Louis congress- 
men, Hon. Richard Bartholdt and Hon. Charles F. 
Joy. After representations had been made to Wash- 
ington by a delegation of influential "Francis Repub- 
licans" of St. Louis, who are deeply interested in the 
local World's Fair corporation, commiltees and the 
"community of interest" in general, including banks, 

121 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

trust companies, etc., the representations of the Re- 
publican members of the Missouri legislature, made 
in behalf of all the Republicans of the state, includ- 
ing St. Louis, were ignored. 

Since that time the April election has been held and, 
as predicted, Rolla Wells has been counted in as 
World's Fair mayor of St. Louis. This book repro- 
duces the reports of successive representative grand 
juries and some of the evidence in the Horton-Butler 
election contest to give a faint idea of what has been 
done in St. Louis for the Democratic state, congres- 
sional, legislative and municipal tickets, and what 
will be done for the same in the future unless the 
Nesbit and police laws are repealed. 

The election of Rolla Wells was contested. The 
Democratic Supreme Court ruled that the ballot boxes 
could not be opened to permit a comparison of the 
votes cast with the registration lists. The constitu- 
tion of Missouri distinctly and directly provides for 
the contest of all elections in Missouri. If the Nesbit 
law is deficient in any respect, it becomes the duty of 
the governor to call the state legislature in extra ses- 
sion and amend the law wherein it is deficient. This 
has not been done. It will not be done unless the 
"state-house ring", with its World's Fair directory, 
is compelled to amend or repeal the cheating laws 
mentioned. This can be done the first time David 
R. Francis and his Republican colleagues, who care 
not a rap for the welfare of the Republican party 
when their own selfish interests are at stake, come 
before congress and request amendment of the 
World's Fair act. It can be done in other ways, one 
of which is suggested in another place in this book. 
It must be done, or the Republican party may as 
well dissolve, the .citizen donate his property to 
charitable institutions and move his person from the 
confines of the state of Missouri. 
122 



NON- CONTESTABLE ELECTIONS. 



DEMOCRATIC SUPREME COURT SETS ASIDE THE 

STATE CONSTITUTION IN ST. LOUIS 

AND MISSOURI. 



Only Municipality and State in the Union Where 
Elections Cannot Be Contested. 



IF THE LAW IS DEFICIENT, WHERE IS THE DEMO 
CRATIC LEGISLATURE AND THE GOVERNOR? 



Text of Supreme Court Decision and Constitution — Parker- 
Wells Contest. 



The Democratic Supreme Court of Missouri has de- 
cided that elections in St. Louis, and elsewhere in the 
state, it is presumed, are non-contestable. The con- 
stitution of 1875 distinctly provides that they are con- 
testable. Read! 

Sec. 3. Art. 8.— All elections by the people shall be by- 
ballot ; every ballot voted shall be numbered in the order 
in which it shall be received, and the number recorded by 
the election officers on the list of voters, opposite the 
name of the voter who presents the ballot. The election 
officers shall be sworn or affirmed not to disclose how 
any voter shall have voted, unless required to do so as 
witnesses in a judicial proceeding: PROVIDED, THAT 
IN ALL CASES OP CONTESTED ELECTIONS THE BAL- 
LOTS CAST MAY BE COUNTED, COMPARED WITH 
THE LIST OP VOTERS, AND EXAMINED UNDER SUCH 
SAFEGUARDS AND REGULATIONS AS MAY BE PRE- 
SCRIBED BY LAW. -State Constitution. 

If the law does not provide the necessary safe- 
guards, and that is the basis of the Democratic Su- 
preme Court's decision, where is the Democratic legis- 
lature, whose duty it is to provide the necessary law 

123 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

to carry the constitution into effect? Where is the 
Democratic governor, whose duty it is to call the 
legislature into extra session whenever laws are de- 
ficient or need to be supplied? In what municipality. 
town or village in the United States are popular elec- 
tions non-contestable except in the city of St. Louis 
and the state of Missouri? Who is responsible? Do 
not the Democrats make, interpret and execute the 
laws? Do the people want non-contestable elections, 
especially when conducted under the Nesbit and other 
partisan election and police laws? 

The Democratic Supreme Court's decision was ren- 
dered last June, and made permanent December 21, in 
the case of the state ex rel. Robert M. Funkhouser, 
relator, vs. Selden P. Spencer, popularly known as the 
St. Louis election case, the effect of the decision being 
to deny the right of the election commissioners to 
open the ballot boxes, examine and compare ballots 
with the voters' or registration lists. 

PARKER-WELLS CONTEST. 

The Supreme Court decision came as a blow to Hon. 
George W. Parker's counsel in his contest of Rolla 
Wells' election as World's Fair mayor. The fact that 
it was rendered on the day just preceding that on 
which it was announced the taking of depositions 
would be begun is considered a remarkable coinei- 
dence. According to the opinion expressed by the at- 
torney's, even if Mr. Wells did "waive all technicali- 
ties," the action would be of no avail, for a restrain- 
ing order could be secured by any interested person 
or even one accused or suspected of fraudulent work 
at the election. 

Another striking coincidence lay in the fact that 
when David K. Francis' election as mayor of St. Louis 
was contested he also prevented the opening of the 

121 



NON-CONTESTA BL.E ELECTIONS. 

ballot boxes through the intervention of the State 
Supreme Court. 

Said Mr. Parker: "Neither Mr. Wells nor any one 
else could 'waive technicalities' in a contest, for none 
of the lower courts would make a ruling adverse to 
that rendered by the Supreme Court. I imagine the 
decision is based on this right to secrecy of the bal- 
lot. If so it reaches beyond the parties to any suit 
and affects the rights of the elector. No parties to a 
contest could infringe upon the rights of the voter. 
I consider it a remarkable coincidence that the opinion 
was handed down on the day before our proceedings 
were to have been begun. I should not have brought 
a contest had I not been promised that the ballots 
would be examined and every effort made to ferret 
out fraud. It was on this understanding that the 
contest was predicated." 

Mr. James L. Minnis, one of Mr. Parker's attorneys, 
said: "This decision stops every avenue of detecting 
fraud. Uttder it we might prove that a man voted 
fraudulently, but we would be unable to prove for 
whom he voted. Mr. Wells might receive a minority 
of votes, yet all of the votes might be counted for 
him and he be seated in the mayor's chair. The Nesbit 
law facilitates fraud, and this decision prevents its 
detection. Many of the frauds, we charge, were com- 
mitted by the substitution of ballots. We claim that 
Parker ballots were destroyed and Wells ballots sub- 
stituted. Many others were committed by repeaters 
who voted other men's names. But if we can not 
&how how they voted we will not be able to accom- 
plish anything. The supreme court has given the 
perpetrators of such frauds absolute immunity from 
discovery." 

Judge William E. Fisse, who has been active in 
the effort to ferret out election frauds, said: "That 
opinion wipes out the constitution. There is now ab- 

125 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

solutely no way of proving fraud. A gang of men 
may go to the polls early and vote other men's names, 
but we can not tell how they voted. The decision 
means that Missouri is to be preserved to Democracy 
if court opinions can accomplish this result. I know 
personally that from 1894 to 1898 Judge Marshall 
held an opinion opposite to that he has expressed in 
this decision. Several times, when he was city coun- 
selor, he ruled that ballot boxes could be opened, and 
so advised the election commissioners. However, he 
gave one opinion to the effect that the boxes could not 
be opened. This was in the contest case of Robert E. 
McMath, then president of the board of public im- 
provements. But Marshall at that time was a can- 
didate for judge of tiie supreme court. I can't give 
you my real opinion of the opinion, for it wouldn't 
look well in print." 



120 



GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES, 



DEMOCRATIC STATE PLATFORM OF 1900 ON 
CORPORATIONS AND STATE TAXES 

AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE. 



Proposed Constitutional Amendment Pro- 
viding for a Perpetual 3 -Cent Tax. 



With Total Assessed State Valuation Ten Billion, 
It Would Still Be Levied. 



WHY STATE INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN CONVERTED 
INTO GOVERNOR'S MACHINES. 



How the Eobby Controls the Legislature Through State 
Institutions. 



The Democratic state platform of 1900 contained 
this in the concluding paragraph: 

The continuance of Democratic State Government 
means the final and full payment of the State debt in the 
first two years of the next administration, making it 
possible at the end of that time to raise all State taxes 
from corporations, leaving- the personal and real property 
in the counties and cities to be taxed only for local pur- 
poses, thus solving the vexed question of equalization 
without increasing the burdens upon any interest. 

This declared policy is significant. It is not true 
that the Democratic administration proposes to "raise 
all state taxes from corporations," because the pro- 
posed amendment to the constitution relating to legal- 
izing school certificates of indebtedness provides for 
a perpetual state tax of three cents on the one hun- 
dred dollars valuation. (See text of amendment* to 

127 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

the constitution submitted by the last Democratic 
legislature relating to the school fund, printed here- 
inbefore.) Moreover, while this tax is but three cents 
on the hundred, it must be remembered that it is 
made perpetual. It will be three cents when the 
assessed valuation of property in Missouri is two, ten 
or twenty billion dollars, just as it will be at the 
present time, when it is one billion dollars, if the 
amendment carries next November. Of course, with 
a total assessed valuation of ten billion dollars in 
Missouri and a perpetual tax of three cents on the 
hundred to pay the interest on the certificates of in- 
debtedness in the school fund, "all state taxes would 
be raised from corporations, etc." Are the people 
of Missouri to believe the Democratic state platform 
of 1900, or accept the constitutional amendment pro- 
viding for a tax of three cents perpetually to pay the 
interest on certificates of indebtedness, submitted by 
the last legislature for ratification in November, 
1902? 

What does the Democratic administration propose 
to do with all the money collected from taxpayers 
when the assessed valuation of the state aggregates 
five or ten billion dollars, instead of one billion, with 
a perpetual 3-cent tax? Extend the patronage of the 
governor, create new, costly and useless offices, and 
spread the practice of governing the towns, cities 
and counties from Jefferson City? 

Are the present Democratic leaders aware that the 
framers of the constitution of 1875 wisely provided 
that when the assessed valuation of property in the 
state aggregated $900,000,000 the tax, except to pay 
the bonded debt of the state, should not exceed fifteen 
cents? In 1892 the assessed valuation exceeded $900.- 
000,000 and the tax was accordingly reduced to 15 
cents. The constitution of 1875, furthermore, placed 

L2S 



GOVERNM ENTAL POLICIES. 

another limitation on the taking power when it pro- 
vided that whenever the bonded debt of the state 
shall have been paid, the tax levied to pay the in- 
terest and principal thereof shall cease to be assessed. 
Bnt obviously the present Democratic administration 
is either ignorant of the letter and spirit of the con- 
stitution, or is bent on deliberately perpetuating for all 
time a state tax on the people, their state platform 
in 1900 to the contrary notwithstanding. 

CORPORATIONS AND TAXES. 
But how about the corporations? Will they pay all 
state taxes? Would they have, paid all state taxes if 
Cue pledges contained in the Democratic state plat- 
form of 1900 had been redeemed? What is meant by 
state taxes as applied to corporate wealth? Special 
tax laws affecting corporations alone? If so. the 
Democratic platform can be depended upon to make 
good its promise, if the record of past Democratic 
administrations and legislatures in enacting and ap- 
proving special tax or license laws is any criterion. 
But if this policy is continued to be enforced, will the 
corporations pay the tax thus assessed, in the shape 
of a license or fee or other charge? Will not the cor- 
poration so assessed make the consumer of his pro- 
duct or whatever he has to sell pay that tax? Will 
not the glass of beer grow smaller? Will not the 
insurance premium become higher? Finally, will "all 
state taxes be raised from corporations"? 

STATE INSTITUTION MACHINES. 
Another policy of Democratic state administrations 
long adopted and executed at great cost to the people 
is the practice of attempting to manage state institu- 
ions — penal, eleemosynary and educational — located 
all over the state, from a central point, or the seal of 
state government. The boards of control are ap- 

129 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

pointed by the governor, and, of course, with such 
chief executives as Stephens and Dockery— men 
actuated alone by selfish motives — the boards of con- 
trol and managing officers have become naught but 
political machines, more or less corrupt and ineffi- 
cient. Witness the result of the Pulton Insane Asy- 
lum investigation and that at the Ghillicothe Indus- 
trial Home for Girls by the legislature in 1899. Read 
Governor Dockery's message or notice to the manag- 
ing bodies and officers of state institutions, warning 
them to refrain from abusing the letting of contracts, 
after his induction into the office of governor! Inves- 
tigate the appointment • of architects, engineers, etc., 
and the letting of contracts whenever a new state 
institution is to be built, or additions constructed 
thereto, which little items are provided for at every 
session of the general assembly. 

LEGISLATURE USED BY LOBBY. 
But this is the least damage dolie by the control of 
state institutions scattered all over Missouri from a 
central point by a politician — modern Democratic gov- 
ernors are nothing more or less. The appropriations 
made by the forty-first general assembly, the 1901 
legislature, exceeded those of any former session 
nearly $600,000. That means that nearly $600,000 
more will be taken out of the people's treasury in the 
years 1901 and 1902 than during any preceding bi- 
ennial period. Why? Because the state institutions 
are scattered in various sections of the state. You say: 
"Why, it's absolutely necessary for them to occupy 
ographical position they do to accommodate the 
needs of the people." You are correct as to geo- 
graphical location, but have you given a thought to 
the matter of management and maintenance? Sup- 
pose the state were divided into eleemosynary or 
penal districts and an institution of either character 

130 



GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES. 

were assigned to each district. Moreover, suppose 
that each institution were presented to the taxpayers 
of such district, with the understanding that they 
must pay for the maintenance and support of such 
institution, such taxpayers being given the right to 
manage such institution through officers of their own 
choosing. Would every county or senatorial district 
having a state institution be compelled under such 
an arrangement to send a representative or senator 
to the legislature and force him to sell his vote regu- 
larly for any or against any bill or proposition the 
lobby wanted, or did not want, as a condition pre- 
cedent to securing the largest possible appropriation 
for the institution in the county or district he repre- 
sents? Would such an arrangement as suggested 
relative to the management and maintenance of state 
institutions permit collusion between those legislators 
representing counties and districts having state in- 
stitutions and the lobby for the purpose of squeezing 
the state treasury for the largest possible appropria- 
tions and enabling the lobby to pay any and all of its 
big bills out of the state treasury at will? Would 
Governor Dockery have been able to co-operate with 
the lobby in organizing the last house of representa- 
tives, dictate the election of Whitcotton as speaker, 
appoint all his committees, decide the fate of all bills 
introduced at that session and pay nearly $600,000 
more out of the state treasury than ever before in 
appropriations for votes for Whitcotton and other 
lobby propositions, under the new arrangement pro- 
posed? How easy to help one's self to the people's 
treasury when every educational, penal and eleemosy- 
nary institution of the state sends one or two repre- 
sentatives to the legislature from the county or sen- 
atorial district in which the institution is located! 
If the institutions were managed and maintained by 
the several proposed districts, would not this evil and 
costly practice cease? 

Vol 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

MACHINES USED AGAINST DEMOCRATS. 

Another evil resulting from the management of 
state institutions from the state capital by a governor 
who is a politician (and most of them are) is the 
implement such management gives the governor to 
control his party conventions. In other words, while 
the governor embraces his extraordinary opportuni- 
ties to build up formidable machines in the large 
cities by virtue of the authority granted him by the 
Nesbit and other partisan election and police laws, 
he :ilso carefully dictates the personnel of the manag- 
ing bodies and officers of state institutions so as to 
utilize these boards and officers to do his political 
bidding whenever the party conventions assemble. 
It matters not whether a state, congressional or a na- 
tional convention, or a county convention to elect 
delegates to such conventions, or nominate candidates 
for the legislature meets, the governor's state institu- 
tion machines and, if need be, his municipal machines 
are on hand to pull the wires for the governor. Con- 
sequently, viewing this evil from a purely selfish 
standpoint, any and every Democrat not a member 
of or affiliated with the "state-house ring" should 
take an active part in any movement looking to a 
curtailment of the practically unlimited power of the 
governor to perpetuate himself and his particular 
regime in his own party in office. The citizen, re- 
gardless of his political faith, should eliminate these 
state institution machines, as well as the municipal 
machines, because they mean simply that they and 
not the citizen has the power to determine who shall 
serve the people in public office. This system is 
neither American, nor constitutional and, moreover, 
it is fraught with the gravest dangers to the public 
welfare and all that that implies. 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE, 



DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE CONVICTED 
OF PERJURY BY SWORN DEMO- 
CRATIC TESTIMONY. 



No "Wicked Republican Minority" in the Committee 
to Blame, Strange to Say. 



'State-House King" the Foe of Hated Corporations "For 
Revenue Only." 



The Carclwell libel suit against the St. Louis Re- 
public for $50,000 was dismissed December 11, 1901, 
by the plaintiff. Mr. Cardwell, a Democratic member 
of the state legislature in 1899, stated that a compro- 
mise had been effected, the former state representa- 
tive saying he had received §5,500 from a mysterious 
man named "E. O. Brown," purporting to represent 
the Republic. The method resorted to by interested 
parties to stop further scandalous revelations — the use 
of "hush" money — was characteristic of the well- 
known and established corrupt policy and practice of 
the ''state-house ring." 

It was easy to anticipate the outcome of the Card- 
well case. Originally a fight between unscrupulous 
Democratic leaders and state officials, it was certain 
the pace would become so hot that interested lobbyists, 
state officials and corporations at the mercy of the 
state administration would call a halt. It is known 
that one of the leading railroad attorneys concerned 
endeavored to raise money in St. Louis the preceding- 
day with which to "stop" further revelations and 
save James M. Seibert, Gov. A. M. Dockery, and 
others marked for the witness stand. 

133 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

It is regarded as unfortunate for the public at 
large that Gov. Dockery and J. M. Seibert were not 
called to the stand. It is a notorious fact that at the 
last session of the legislature Mr. Dockery was the 
most conspicuous figure in the lobby, having gone so 
far as to dictate the organization of the house of repre- 
sentatives and the election of James H. Whitecotton, 
of Monroe, as speaker, notwithstanding that his record 
as a member of previous sessions smelled to Heaven. 
Mr. Dockery played into the hands of the lobby 
throughout the session. He designed and fathered a 
meaningless franchise tax bill in the interest of the 
railroad lobby. He then turned around and made the 
brewers and whisky men pay the lobby's debts by 
perpetuating and adding to their and the people's 
burdens of taxation. He did this on the plea that 
the state government needed more revenue, after he 
and the lobby increased appropriations for state in- 
stitutions over $600,000, taking that much additional 
money out of the revenue fund, to get the votes of 
those members representing counties and districts 
with state institutions for Whitecotton and other 
lobby propositions. 



CARDWELL'S ATTORNEY TALKS. 



Says Compromise Was Effected While He Was After 
Seibert's Scalp. 

Frank Walsh, attorney for W. O. Cardwell and a 
member of the Democratic state committee, was in 
St. Louis at the time the suit was dismissed and 
learned of the settlement by a telegram from his 
client. Mr. Walsh said: 

"I came to St. Louis for the purpose of resisting 
any habeas corpus proceedings which might be 
brought by Excise Commissioner Seibert t<> defeal the 

131 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

attachment issued by Notary Public Albert M. Ott. 
He declared when the constable served the subpoena 
upon him a few days ago that he would defy the 
authority of the notary public and flatly refused to 
go to Independence. I am firmly of the opinion that 
the law would have compelled him to go. In the 
midst of this effort I was advised by Mr. Card well 
that he had compromised his case and dismissed it, 
although I was assured as late as last evening that 
it would not be done. This, of course, ends the effort 
to get a statement from Mr. Seibert on the witness 
stand. My client had the undoubted right to com- 
promise and dismiss his litigation, my ^iews to the 
contrary notwithstanding. 

"There has not been a day since proceedings -were 
instituted that efforts have not been made to have 
Mr. Cardwell compromise his case, and I would not 
be surprised to learn that politics cut some figure in 
the settlement. Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., county 
clerk of Jackson county, and quite a figure in politics 
in certain of the Kansas City wards, was a very 
strong adherent of Mr. Cardweii's in the early part 
of the litigation. Shortly after the institution of the 
suit, and when the evidence began to pour in to the 
effect that Mr. Cardwell did not falsify when he stated 
that the officers of the state committee received 
money from the corporations to protect them from 
hostile legislation, Mr. Crittenden visited St. Louis 
and returned with a proposition that if the suit was 
dropped the state administration would do the 'right 
thing' in the appointment of police commissioners at 
Kansas City, the appointment of two commissioners 
being due there next month. I did not then and do 
not now believe that Gov. Dockery would be a party 
to any such deal, and doubt much if Mr. Crittenden 
had any authority for his statement, unless, possibly, 
thai of Mr. Seiiiert himself. Moreover, Mr. Critteu- 

ir.5 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

den was informed that such outside considerations 
could not weigh in the conduct or settlement of this 
litigation. 

''The county clerk immediately joined the ranks 
of those alleged Democrats who profess to hold the 
peculiar views of the new Seibert-Cook political cult, 
namely, that it is not an act of political indecency 
to make an anti-monopoly campaign upon money fur- 
nished by the monopolies; and has ever since brought 
ail the influences he could command to bear upon 
Cardwell to settle. It may have had its effect." 

"Did you have any intimation that the suit would 
be compromised today?" was asked of Mr. Walsh. 

"I received a telegram from Cardwell this morn- 
ing. He said he had been offered as much as I told 
him he could get in a verdict and he thought he 
ought to compromise." 

"How much did you say he could get?" was asked 
Mr. Walsh. 

"At least $10,000." 

"Did you advise him to sortie the case?" 

"I told him to hold things in abeyance until to- 
morroAV, and that I would not compromise without 
full retraction." 

"You wired him that?" 

"I did." 

"When did you learn that he had compromised the 
case?" 

"I received a telegram from him about 3.30 this 
afternoon, saying: *1 have settled ami dismissed suit. 
Act accordingly.' " 

"Had previous efforts been mad' to effect a com- 
promise?" 

"Yes. Several parties representing themselves as 
agents tor the St. Louis Republic went to him. 1 
understood lie was offered $7,500 to call it off." 

"By whom was the money offered?" 

"By the attorney fur the Republic, 1 presume." 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

THE REPUBLIC'S DENIAL. 



Says No Compromise "Was Authorised— Editor Graham's 
Statement. 

Joseph A. Graham, editor of the Republic, made 
the following statement: 

"No matter what statement is given out to the con- 
trary, the Republic has not made, or at any time 
proposed to make, a compromise with Mr. Cardwell. 
No person representing the Republic, or of the Re- 
public's knowledge, has even approached Mr. Card- 
well or his representatives with a proposition to give 
any compensation or to grant any concession for the 
purpose of effecting a settlement. So far from that, 
the Republic has refused to entertain any sugges- 
tion of compensation or of apology. If Mr. Cardwell 
has dismissed the suit, it is his own act, done for 
reasons of his own. The Republic has been per- 
' fectly satisfied with the prospects of the suit and 
has hoped that the testimony might later uncover all 
the evil in the politics of the state without regard 
to party politics. When Mr. Cardwell says, if he 
does say, that a representative of the Republic paid 
him money, or even requested him, to dismiss the 
suit, he has either been deceived by an imposter 
representing somebody more anxious than the Re- 
public for a dismissal, or willfully and shamefully 
lies." 



SEIBERT ARRESTED. 



Saved From the Witness Stand by a Very Timely 
Settlement. 

James M. Seibert, chairman of the Democratic 
state committee, was arrested at noon Wednesday 
on a writ of attachment from Albert M. Ott, the 

137 



STATE REPUBLICxiN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

notary public at Independence. The warrant was 
served by John T. Neagle, constable in the Eighth 
district. Mr. Seibert was found on Fourth street, St. 
Louis. 

"I have an attachment for you, Mr. Seibert," said 
the constable. 

"I waive it," responded Mr. Seibert. The constable 
explained that it was a writ commanding him to ap- 
pear in Independence in the 1 case of W. O. Cardwell 
vs. the St. Louis Republic. 

"I said I would not go, and I will not," said Mr. 
Seibert. After some discussion Mr. Seibert and Con- 
stable Neagle proceed to the office of Mr. Seibert's 
attorney, in the Equitable building. After a con- 
ference with his attorney, Mr. Seibert agreed to meet 
the constable at the Southern hotel at 5 o'clock in 
time to go with him to Kansas City. The constable 
then released his prisoner and Mr. Seibert and his 
atiorney continued togeiher for some time. 

Mr. Seibert's attorney had been in communication 
with a gentleman at Kansas City over the long-dis- 
tance telephone. He received word that the Card well 
suit might be settled, and when a reporter asked him 
what steps would now be taken, the attorney said: 

"There is a chance that the suit may be compro- 
mised. I am waiting for a message from Mr. Walsh, 
who is at the Planters' hotel." 

Mr. Seibert's attorney had not placed entire depend- 
on the message from Kansas City. He had pre- 
pared a petition asking for a writ of habeas corpus for 
Mr. Seibert. Arrangements were made with Judge 
Shepard Barclay, of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, to 
hear the petition a! four o'clock. It was about four 
o'clock when Mr. Seibert's attorney stepped into the 
reception room of his office and announced that the 
Cardwell suit had been dismissed and he would not 
present the application for writ of habeas corpus. He 

138 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

had the paper in his hand signed and seal all ready 
to present to Judge Barclay. Mr. Seibert was in the 
office at the time and he seemed to be relieved at 
the news. His face resumed its pleasant expression, 
which has not been so evident since the proceedings 
at Independence began. 

"Are you satisfied with events?" Mr. Seibert was 
asked. 

"I have nothing to say," said he. "I don't want to 
be quoted at all." 



RICH AND INSTRUCTIVE TESTIMONY. 



Representative Ransdell Tells of Seibert/ s Interest in 
Stock Yards Bill. 

Questioned by Walshj Ransdell told of his legis- 
lative experience. He knew J. M. Seibert, who, in 
1899, was state auditor. 

"Some one came to me," he said, "one day while I 
was in the house and said Mr. Seibert wanted to 
see me. I went to his office. He asked me how I 
stood on the stock yards bill, then pending. I said I 
meant to vote for the bill. He asked me if I would 
not vote against the bill, and told me the stock yards 
company had contributed to pay the expenses of the 
Democratic campaign. I said I could not vote against 
the bill." 

"What was the bill?" Walsh asked. 

'It was one to reduce charges at the stock yards." 

"How did you vote on the bill? What does the 
record show?" 

"I voted for the bill." 

Questioned by Morton Jourdan, attorney for the 
St. Louis Republic, Ransdell said the conversation 
was between him and Seibert while they were alone 
in the auditor's office. He had not told it to many 

139 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

people. Jourdan pushed hini to tell when he had 
told it, and to whom. He said he thought he might 
have told some member while the bill was pending. 
He did not think he had made a speech on the stock 
yards bill. The conversation took place while the 
bill was pending, before it was placed on its passage. 

"You say," Jourdan said, "that Seibert asked you 
to vote against the stock yards bill because the stock 
yards contributed to the campaign fund?"' Jourdan 
said inquiringly. 

"Yes, sir." 

"Did he tell you to whom the money was paid?" 

"No, sir." 

"Did he tell you the amount?" 

"I don't think he did." 

Walsh took up the thread and asked if Seibert 
ever told him of having been sent for by the chair- 
man of the state committee to come to St. Louis 
and raise money from the corporations. Ransdell 
said he was not sure. Seibert told him that it was 
the state chairman who sent for him, but he had told 
him on another occasion that he, Seibert, had raised 
$16,000 among the corporations for the Democratic 
campaign fund. This was after the talk about the 
stock yards in another conversation, had in Seibert's 
private office. Jourdan brought out that Seibert had 
said he raised the money and distributed it. 

"At that time," Jourdan asked, "wasn't Mr. Sam 
Cook chairman of the state committee?" 

"He was." 

"And .Mr. Virgil Conkling was secretary V" 

"I think so." 

•■And Air. Prank P. Walsh was chairman of the 
finance committee?" 

"I don't know; Seiberl spoke only of himself." 

At (his point Ransdell was excused. 

140 



INFAMOUS CARD WELL CASE. 
SAM B. COOK TESTIFIES. 



Explains Relations Between the Brewers, the Transit 
Company and the State Committee. 

Samuel B. Cook, secretary of state, was called to 
the witness stand. Lie testified that he had been 
chairman of 'die state Democratic committee for about 
five years, and was chairman of the committee at the 
time of the campaign which elected the legislature of 
1899. In the campaign of 1896 he had received $2100 
from Col. W. H. Phelps, of the Missouri Pacific. 
The treasurer of the state committee had credited 
Cook with the $2000 which Mr. Phelps had paid. 

"In the campaign of 1898 did you collect money 
from the corporations?" 

"I think John H. Carroll gave us $1000." 

"Did you collect $6000 from the St. Louis Transit 
company?" 

"I did not." 

"Did Mr. Seibert bring $6000 from the Transit 
company?" 

"He brought some money given him by II. S. 
Priest, a lawyer of St. Louis." 

"Attorney for the Transit company, wasn't he?" 

"I believe he was." 

"Did Mr. Seibert get other money and bring it to 



you 



9" 



"I think he collected $3000 or $4000 more." 

"Did he bring it to you?" 

"He distributed most of it himself." 

"Did Mr. Seibert tell you where he got the money?" 

"No; I understand Mr. Priest and Col. Carroll as- 
sisted Mr. Seibert in gathering this money. I don't 
know where they got it." 

Cook said Seibert went to St. Louis to raise money 
and help in the campaign. He had gone out and got 

ju 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

money and handled most of it himself. About the 
beer money the witness said: 

"The brewers had given the Republicans $5000, I 
understand, and they came to us and offered $2500 
for our campaign fund. It was given to Mr. Seibert 
by the brewers' agent, with the request that it be 
not reported in the ordinary channels. They did 
not want the Republicans to know they had given 
us any money." 

Cook said he knew where Seibert disbursed the 
money in the close counties of the state. 

SAM PRIEST'S '-GIFT." 

Referring to the transit company's contribution of 
$6,000, Walsh asked if important legislation affecting 
the transit company was not passed in 1899. Cook 
said it was true. He had talked with Judge Priest 
about the legislation when they met in St. Louis. 

Jourdan cross-examined Cook, who said he did not 
know where Priest got the $6,000 he paid to Seibert. 
He did not know where Carroll got the money he 
paid in, but his own check for $1000 was Col. Carroll's 
personal contribution. He knew of the brewers' 
money, but did not know whether the stock yards 
company had contributed any money. 

•'There was no agreement," he said, "made by me 
or with my authority, consent or knowledge, with 
any corporation or interest that promised any sort 
of protection against legislation." 

"Did you collect money from the telephone com- 
panies?" 

"I did not." 

"Was money collected from them?" 

••I don't know. I never heard of it if there was. 
I never heard of money being collected from the 
stock yards until Mr. Ransdell spoke of it." 

"Both might lane contributed?" 



INFAMOUS CAIIDWELL CASE. 

"As I said there was money raised through Col. 
Carroll that I did not trace the origin of." 

"Where was the money so collected spent?" Jour- 
dan asked. 

"Some of it came to Kansas City. There was $1000 
sent to Mr. Walsh or Mr. Sebree. I don't remember 
to whom it was sent, though I have seen the check. 
There was $300 sent to Cedar county to help elect 
Mr. Ransdell and his county ticket." 

COOK AND WALSH MIX. 

"I understand," Mr. Cook continued, "that during 
the last campaign Mr. Seibert, at the request of Mr. 
Frank P. Walsh, called up Walton H. Holmes over 
the long-distance telephone and asked him to give 
the county committee $1000 for the county campaign. 
Mr. Holmes told Mr. Seibert that he had already 
arranged to do so." 

"If Mr. Seibert told you that he told a falsehood," 
declared Walsh. "It is not true. I did not ask him 
to call on Mr. Holmes for money and when Mr. 
Holmes did contribute $1000 it was promptly returned 
to him." 

"That's my recollection of the fact," replied Cook. 

"Mr. Seibert did call on Mr. Holmes for money for 
us, but not at my request," said Walsh. 

"He told me it was done at your request," was 
Cook's answer. 

"Now, don't you know that without any request 
from me Mr. Seibert did ask Mr. Holmes for $1000 
for our campaign and that we sent it back at once?" 
Walsh asked. 

"I never heard of any money being sent back," 
said Cook. 

"When you sent $1000 to help the local campaign 
you did not tell us it was corporation money, did 
you," Walsh asked. 

143 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

"The money was sent from the general fund col- 
lected, as I have already told you, from various 
sources. I don't consider the collection of campaign 
money from corporations, which are willing to give 
without exacting promises, to be improper." 

"Mr. Cook," asked Walsh, "in your letter about 
Cardwell you treat an attack on you as au attack on 
the Democratic party; are you the Democratic party 
of Missouri?" 

"I certainly do not regard it in any such light as 
that. I do say, though." said Cook, ''that a man 
who attacks Mr. Seibert, who is the head of the 
party organization, as Mr. Seibert has been attacked, 
is attacking the honesty and integrity of the party." 

"In the campaign of 1898," Mr. Cook continued, 
"there was but one such proposition made. There 
was a contest in the 18th senatorial district between 
Mr. Boyden and Mr. Tandy. It appeared that if Boy- 
den was placed on the ticket it was in the interest 
of Mr. Landrum, the Republican nominee. You (to 
Walsh) was there and wanted to recognize Boyden. 
We took a recess and during that lime a member 
of the committee came to me and said we could get 
all the campaign money we wanted if we would 
recognize Boyden. 1 said I would resign the chair- 
manship first and fought it out and Mr. Tandy was 
elected." 

Walsh insisted on the members' names being stated 
publicly. Cook said it was not Walsh, but he would 
not name the member unless forced to do it. 

"BILL" PHELPS 5 DONATION. 

Cook said he wished to explain what had been 
referred to in the testimony about the Phelps' con- 
tribution in 1896. 

"I was chairman then," he said, "and Col. Phelps 
gave me his check for $100. Afterward we needed 

i 14 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

$2000 more. Col. Phelps paid it. Col. Carroll had 
paid $1000 in the part raised for Gov. Stephens. 
When it came time for us to file our report a personal 
friend of Gov. Stephens came to me and, on behalf 
of the governor, asked that the $2000 given by Col. 
Phelps be entered as having been given by some one 
else. At the request of Col. Phelps, in compliance 
with the governor's wishes, I entered the Pheips' 
$2000 as paid by myself. I also, in 1898, entered 
$1000 paid by Col. Carroll as collected by myself." 

"Who came to you from Gov. Stephens?" 

"I prefer not to tell." 

"But we insist." 

"It was Mr. Ed. T. Orear." (Mr. Orear was in- 
surance commissioner under Stephens.) 

Walsh — "Did you ever ask a governor to sign a 
bill while you was state chairman?" 

"I did." 

"Did you go among the members of the legislature 
and ask them to vote for any bill?" 

"I did. I stayed in Jefferson City several days 
urging the passage of what was called the horse 
breeders' bill." 

"And you know this bill authorized or legalized the 
betting on horse races inside of inclosures?" 

Cook — "It broke up the poolrooms." 

"But it legalized gambling on horse races." 

"Possibly it did. I was requested by Dr. McAllis- 
ter, of my home town, Mexico, to go to Jefferson 
City and urge the bill, not because I was state chair- 
man, but because of my acquaintance in the state." 

Jourdan followed with a line of questions which 
brought out the statement that the breeders' bill had 
driven poolrooms out of St. Louis. The bill was the 
one which legalized selling pools at race tracks on 
payment of license. It was the cause of a hard fight 
in the legislature of 1899. 

10 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

"I want to say something about Col. Carroll," 
Cook said. "He has always been a liberal contributor. 
He gave his check for $1,000 in each of two state 
campaigns and gave the national committee $3,000 at 
one time. He has always given freely. In no in- 
stance has the party been obligated because of any 
contribution given by him personally or collected by 
him. As an evidence that we have not been influenced 
by contributions, I want to call your attention to the 
fact that, although we understood the Metropolitan 
Street Railway Co., of Kansas City, had contributed 
$1,000 to the local campaign fund, we raised the 
valuation of that company's property $1,500,000 this 
year." 



GOVERNOR STEPHENS' TESTIMONY. 



More Egg" Shells Exposed in the Refreshing Cardwell 
Suit at Independence. 

The substance of Gov. Lon V. Stephens' testimony 
follows: 

"Mr. Cook," began Attorney Walsh, "stated in his 
deposition given here last week that a certain con- 
tribution had been made by Col. Phelps. Col. Phelps 
is attorney for the Missouri Pacific railroad, is he 
not?" 

"Yes, sir." 

Mr. Cook's original statement was then read, as 
follows: 

"Col. Phelps brought a check to. headquarters about 
the close of the campaign of 1896, a few days after 
its close. It was entered on my books to his credit. 
Later, when we made up the statement for publica- 
tion, I mean the sworn statement by the treasurer, 
the personal representative of the governor insisted 
the contribution ought not to go in as coming from 

146 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

Col. Phelps, and it was at his request that I went 
over and saw Col. Phelps and told him the objection 
to it. He wrote out an order to the treasurer to credit 
it in my. name. That is how it came to be reported 
in my name instead of in the name of Col. Phelps. I 
do not know how he raised the money. This altera- 
tion in the record was made at the personal request 
of Gov. Stephens' personal representative." 

Afterward the witness, Mr. Cook, said he had in 
mind Ed. Orear when he spoke of Gov. Stephens' 
personal representative. 

Attorney Walsh resumed his examination of Gov. 
Stephens. He asked: 

"When did you first learn Col. Phelps had made 
this contribution?" 

"I think it was two years afterward." 

"Did you ever send Ed. Orear or any other per- 
sonal representative to Mr. Cook with the request 
that the contribution from Col. Phelps be placed in 
the records and sworn to as coming from Sam. B. 
Cook?" 

"I did not." 

"Did yon ever authorize Mr. Orear to see Mr. 
Cook at all with reference to this $2,000 contribu- 
tion?" 

"I did not." 

SAM COOK AS A LOBBYIST. 

This finished for the moment the reference to the 
hiding of the $2,000 worth of shells. Turning on 
another tack, Attorney Walsh asked the governor if 
he recalled Mr. Cook lobbying for the breeders' bill. 
The witness answered in the affirmative. 

"He called on me frequently," said the governor, 
"in relation to the bill after it had passed the house 
and the senate. I do not know how long he was on 
the ground looking after the bill, though he was there 
a great deal of the time." 

147 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

"Did Mr. Cook ever have any conversation with 
you before you signed the bill, in which he stated the 
capacity in which he was acting?" 

"He called on me on one occasion a little bit ex- 
cited because I held back so long and because I 
would not give him positive assurance that I would 
sign the bill. He asked me if I would object to him 
walking over as far as the Mansion house. I said 
I would be glad to have him accompany me. It was 
at this time he told me that it meant a good deal to 
him in a financial way; after the bill received my 
signature he would receive a fee, a pretty good fee, 
for it." 

"Did he state the amount of the fee?" 

"I am not sure about that. I can not recall that 
he stated the amount." 

"Are you sure he said he was receiving a fee for 
it?" 

"Oh, there is no — I am very sure about that." 

The witness was then cross-examined by Mr. Leh- 
mann, but on the advice of his counsel declined to 
answer. Mr. Lehmann placed the witness in a very 
embarrassing position, showing that Mr. Stephens 
was governor when many questionable things were 
done by the legislature and must nave known about 
them. 

Redirect examination by Mr. Walsh: 

"Mr. Stephens, Mr. Lehmann asked you about the 
occupation of Col. W. H. Phelps, and you stated 
what it was. Was that his occupation in 1896, when 
he gave Cook the contribution of $2,000, which after- 
wards appeared as a contribution of Cook?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Do you know whether or not the statement of it, 
as to whom they got this money from, was ever 
published in the newspapers?" 

148 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

"I think that came out in the controversy in the 
early part of January, 1899." 

"I will get you to state, if you have not already 
stated, if you directly or indirectly authorized Mr. 
Cook to take the contribution of $2,000 from William 
H. Phelps, about whom you have already testified, 
and put it in the sworn report of the treasurer as the 
contribution of Sam B. Cook?" 

"I had nothing whatever to do with it." 

SEIBERT AND THE BREWERS. 

"Mr. Lehmann also asked you the question in 
reference to whether or not you had heard that any- 
body got any money from the brewers in 1898; and 
you stated that you heard that Mr. Seibert had got- 
ten money from the brewers. Do you recall who told 
you that Mr. Seibert had gotten money from the 
brewers in the campaign of 1898?" 

"He told me himself." 

"State whether or not to your knowledge Mr. Sei- 
bert was at that time attempting to defeat this beer 
legislation." 

"Well, I don't know; if he did, he did not intimate 
it to me. I favored that very strongly as a revenue 
producer. Everybody knows what I — " 

"What did he tell you he got from the brewers?" 
interrupted Attorney Walsh. 

"I think it was $2,500." 

"Did he tell you what he did with it?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Did he tell you whether or not he gave it to mem- 
bers of the legislature?" 

"Well, he told me that in districts, senatorial dis- 
tricts and representative districts, where our Demo- 
cratic friends were in danger, he went to them and 
gave it to them himself from his own hands." 

"Gave it to whom?" 

149 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK, 

"Candidates for representative and senator." 

"Did he state or do you know whether or not some 
of them were afterward elected that he handed this 
money to?" 

"Yes, sir; I think he gave some to our senator, 
Tandy." 

Attorney Walsh (interrupting-): "Well, I don't care 
about that; I just want to know whether they were 
elected that he gave it to?" 

"And he stated that he took this money which he 
had received from the brewing corporations of St. 
Louis and with his own hands gave it to men who 
were running for senator and representative in that 
campaign?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"I believe that is all," replied Mr. Walsh. 

HOW THE MONEY WAS SPENT. 

Re-cross-examination by Mr. Lehmann was then 
begun. 

"Who were the men that Mr. Seibert stated to you 
he gave the money to, and who were running for the 
legislature and who were elected?" 

"I don't remember now. I thought Mr. Seibert's 
motives were altogether pure. I saw no wrong in 
his doing what he could to help elect our candidates, 
and I don't remember who they were, but in the 
close districts and counties in the state he helped 
them to the extent of his ability." 

"At the time and before the influences of the 
present controversy had exerted themselves, you were 
of the opinion that the conduct of Mr. Seibert was 
entirely proper?" 

Mr. Walsh: One moment; I object to that as im- 
material, and calling for an improper conclusion of 
this witness." 

150 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

At this point, counsel for defendant apparently at- 
tempted to show that the alleged high-handed meth- 
ods of Chairman Seibert met with the governor's" 
approval until after the close of his administration. 
All of which questions Gov. Stephens refused to 
answer. A few of them, however, follow: 

"You were interested in the result of that election 
because you were governor of the state at the time, 
and you desired, did you not, an expression of the 
people at the polls which would carry with it an 
endorsement of your administration?" 

Mr. Walsh: "We object to that as immaterial as to 
what his desires were at the time, and I ask that 
the witness decline to answer." 

"I decline to answer," said the governor. 

"You would not have consented for one moment, 
would you, to the use of corrupt or venal influences 
for the purpose of securing an endorsement of your 
administration; you wanted that upon its merits, or 
not at all?" 

Mr. Walsh: "I object to that as incompetent, irrele- 
vant and immaterial, and not meeting any issue in 
this case, and ask that the witness decline to an- 
swer." 

"I decline to answer," was again the response. 

"Did you rebuke Mr. Seibert at the time he told 
you what he was doing and say to him that his 
methods, if known, would be a scandal to the party?" 

Mr. Walsh: "I object to that as incompetent, irrele- 
vant and immaterial — any proposed rebuke to this 
innocent gentleman." 

"I decline to answer." 

"Did you tell Mr. Seibert that his methods were 
improper, and did you ask him to discontinue them?" 

Mr. Walsh: "I object to that as incompetent, irrele- 
vant and immaterial, and because the witness has 
already testified that Seibert told this after the legis- 

151 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

lature was in session, and ask that the witness de- 
cline to answer." 
"I decline to answer." 

WHERE THE EGGS CAME IN. 

"Mr. Stephens, you have referred to the period 
when you first became aware of the fact that Mr. 
Phelps had made a contribution of $2,000 to the Demo- 
cratic committee funds, and have fixed the date with 
reference to a controversy that broke out. I will 
ask you whether the controversy to which you refer 
was the one in which the poultry business of the 
state was in a measure involved?" 

"I don't understand your question at all." 

"The one in which Mr. Phelps conceded his habit 
of sucking eggs, but disdained any imputation of 
hiding their shells?" 

"I think possibly his Carthage speech was the first 
knowledge of that contribution." 

"This matter of hiding the shells had reference to 
the hiding of the source from which money was re- 
ceived, had it not?" 

"I think so; yes, sir." 

Mr. Walsh then asked: 

"What he said about that was that he and ex-Gov. 
Stone agreed on the consumption of eggs being 
proper, but they disagreed as to the disposition of 
the shells?" 

"Yes, sir." 

* * *•* * * * * 

"You say that you were not aware that Phelps had 
made a contribution in 1896 until some time in 1899?" 

"I think it was in 1899 when I first heard about it." 

"You knew Phelps to be active in the political life 
of the state, did you not?" 

"Yes, sir." 

152 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

PHELPS A HANDY MAN. 

"You wrote a letter, did you not, or a statement 
to Hardin, a lawyer of Nevada, Mo., in which you 
stated that you would like to have Phelps sent be- 
cause he was a very handy man?" 

"I did, sir." 

Walsh: "Governor, if you will please not answer 
those questions you will oblige me very much." 

The witness: "I wish you would tell me not to.". 

TONY STUEVER CONTRIBUTES. 

"Was it unusual, during the campaign of 1896, 
when you were a candidate for governor, for a con- 
tribution to be made to the Democratic state com- 
mittee, or to the candidates, or to the representatives 
of the party in the conduct of that campaign, and 
report that contribution in the name of some other 
person?" 

"I know very little about the conduct of that cam- 
paign." 

"I will ask you whether, during that campaign, a 
contribution of $1,000 was made by Mr. Tony Stuever, 
of the city of St. Louis?" 

"I think he made more than that, Mr. Lehmann." 

"But he did make a $1,000 contribution, did he 
not?" 

"I think he made two or three $1,000 contributions." 

"Did he not make a contribution of $1,000 during 
that campaign which he made directly to you?" 

"I think he made it all to me." 

"At Jefferson City?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"How was it reported?" 

"It was turned over to Orear, and by him to the 
state committee. I don't know how it was reported." 

"In whose name did it appear in the accounts of 
the committee?" 

153 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

"I am sure I don't know, sir." 

"What direction did you give in this respect?" 

"I gave no direction at all." 

"Did you not know that that contribution did not 
appear in the name of Stuever?" 

"From the manner in which contributions have 
been reported, I would not be surprised at anything — 
any disposition that was made of it." 

Lehmann: "Now, Mr. Stephens, do you know why 
the contribution was made by Mr. Stuever to you, 
and not to the committee?" 

Walsh: "That is objected to for the same reason, 
being entirely immaterial." 

"Do you decline to answer that question?" 

"Yes, sir." T 

Addressing Mr. Walsh, Mr. Lehmann said: 

"I would like to confer with you a moment." 

Mr. Walsh: "With me?" 

Mr. Lehmann: "Let the record show counsel for 
plaintiff and witness retire for consultation," to which 
there is no objection by the defendant, except de- 
fendant insists on its being shown upon the record. 

Mr. Walsh: "There is no objection to that. You 
might say if defendant objected, counsel would go 
anyhow." 

WHY STUEVER PAID STEPHENS. 

Plaintiff's counsel and witness retired together 
from the room for a short time, and on returning, 
counsel for plaintiff, Mr. Walsh, said: 

Mr. Stephens Risked me to please let him state why 
Mr. Stuever made the contribution to him, and inas- 
much as he requests it, I am going to let him put 
that in, but I shall object to any more of that irrele- 
vant testimony not part of the issues as to whether 
or not Cardwell lied when he made that statement." 

154 



INFAMOUS CARDWELTv CASE. 

The witness: "Are you ready for my statement— 
my reply to that question?" 

Walsh: "Reply to the question as to why Stuever 
made the contribution to you direct." 

"At the time," said the governor, "I was confined 
to a darkened room on account of the serious con- 
dition of my eyes. I had also inflammatory rheuma- 
tism, which kept me in a month or two, or possibly 
longer, during this campaign. Mr. Stuever called 
upon me at a time I was quite ill; it was the first 
time I had ever met him. My wife allowed him in 
my room, but he was introduced to me by a Jeffer- 
son City friend. He told me I was being betrayed 
by the committee; that they were really doing noth- 
ing to advance my interests, and that in the southern 
part of the city of St. Louis there was nothing that 
appeared in any of the German papers concerning 
me or my record, and nobody seemed, in the commit- 
tee, to be willing to do anything that would help me 
in any way, directly or indirectly; that he felt like 
something was rotten, and he wanted to do something 
that would help me down there if I had no objection 
to it; that he would not turn the money over to the 
committee himself, but would turn it over to me for 
the purpose of getting out some German literature 
or getting something before that section of the city. 
He had no interest in it further than he was a Demo- 
crat and wanted to see the governor elected, and he 
said he would turn over— contribute freely — for that 
purpose, and that purpose alone. I told Mr. Stuever 
that I would not accept money under any such terms; 
that if he contributed at all, he would do it volun- 
tarily, and it would go into the committee, and he at 
first thought that would benefit me, but if I would 
put it in the hands of those there they would do 
something to help me down there, where not a thing 
had been done at all in the interests of the gov- 
155 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

ernor. And I did not see very much of him, and he 
left at that time a check with my wife, and I did 
not know what it was, and I had her write a letter, 
either to Mr. Cook or to some one connected with the 
committee, and turn it over to them; and it was 
found to be a thousand dollars. Subsequently he con- 
tributed more. I don't know whether it was $1,000 
or $2,000, but as fast as it was given to me it was 
turned over to the committee. What disposition was 
made of it I don't know, any further than I presume 
it was used for the purpose of helping elect the 
whole ticket." 

"Who was the friend that introduced Mr. Stuever?" 

"I don't know that that has anything to do with 
it. But to satisfy your curiosity I will tell you it 
was Mr. Ellsner, of Jefferson City." 

Lehmann: "Now, what was the aggregate of Mr. 
Stuever's contribution?" 

"I don't know." 

"I believe from what you have stated here, that 
I here was at least $3,000," said Mr. Lehmann. 

"It might have been more, and it might have been 
less." 

BRADLEY'S EYE-OPENER. 

Rev. .Tames Bradley, a Baptist minister of Audrain 
county, represented his county in the legislature in 
1897 and was chaplain of the senate in 1899. He 
said Sam B. Cook asked him to vote for the breeders' 
bill. 

Frank P. Walsh, Card well's attorney, asked: "Did 
you ever see a telegram from Mr. Cook to Mr. Clark in 
1899 in reference to the St. Louis street railway con- 
solidation bill?" This is the bill of the St. Louis 
Transit company, which Mr. Walsh has endeavored 
to connect with the $6000 contribution of Judge H. S. 
Priest, attorney for the company, to the state com- 
mittee. 

156 



INFAMOUS CARDWELL CASE. 

The witness answered "Yes," and upon inquiry 
testified that the telegram asked Mr. Clark to give the 
bill his earnest support, and that the bill was passed 
before supper at the afternoon session of the house. 
The bill had already passed the senate. It was Mr. 
Bradley's opinion that Mr. Clark did not vote at all 
on the bill. 

ED. OREAR TESTIFIES. 

Ed. T. Orear, superintendent of insurance under 
Stephens, was asked whether he had asked Cook to 
report the Phelps contribution of $2000 in some other 
name. Orear said he had not asked him. Cook sent 
for him to come to St. Louis. He met Cook with 
Stone. Cook told them that Phelps had given $2000 
to clear up all the debts. "My recollection," he said, 
"is that Gov. Stone said it would be improper to re- 
port the Phelps' contribution in the name of Col. 
Phelps because Mr. Phelps represented corporations. 
We finally agreed that if Mr. Phelps was willing it 
might be best to use some other name. Mr. Cook 
went to see Col. Phelps, and I was told later that 
Mr. Phelps consented." 

Orear said that he was not at St. Louis as the 
personal representative of Gov. Stephens and he did 
not know whether Stephens heard of it until he told 
him about a year later. He did not tell him until a 
year or more after the close of the campaign. 

Cross-examined by Mr. Lehmann, Orear said the 
meeting in St. Louis was after the election. He had 
himself suggested the reference of the question of 
whose name the Phelps contribution should be en- 
tered in to Col. Phelps. 

"Did you have any idea at the time," said Mr. Leh- 
mann, "that there was anything improper in the 
party receiving money for the campaign fund from 
Col. Phelps?" 

157 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

Attorney Walsh objected, and Orear refused to 
answer. 

"Had you any information of any impropriety in 
the conduct of Col. Phelps at any time?" 

Orear again refused to answer, at the request of 
Attorney Walsh. 

"Did any one present suggest that you send back 
to Col. Phelps the $2000?" asked Mr. Lehmann. 

Witness declined to answer. 

Orear did not know just how much money Tony 
Stuever, of St. Louis, gave in the campaign of 1896. 
Mr. Stephens in cross-examination had admitted that 
it was in the neighborhood of $3000. 

Lehmann: Do you know it to be a fact that this 
money given by Tony Stuever was all reported on 
the books of the committee as having been given by 
Gov. Stephens? 

Orear: I refuse to answer. 

FINANCE COMMITTEE. 

Dr. E. P. Chinn, a member of the state committee 
from Boone county, testified that in 1898 and 1900 his 
name had been advertised as a member of the finance 
committee. He did not know anything about money 
being given by the corporations. The finance com- 
mittee never held a meeting. 

Walsh: Was it a working committee or a sham? 

"I considered it a sham," replied the witness. 



THE 

"OLD POLITICIAN'S" 
LETTERS -^ 

AS PUBLISHED IN THE 

St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 



EGGS AND EXPERTS. 



"THE OLD POLITICIAN" FINDS SOME OLD NESTS 
AND SOME NEW ONES. 



The Evolution of the Lobby Committee from Partisan 
War Prejudice. 



Joe Bowers and Sallie's Keel-Haired Baby — The "Expe- 
rience Meeting" at Independence. 



[From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.] 
JEFFERSON CITY, MO., December 14.— "Joe 
Bowers," said the Old Politician, "bad a good deal 
more horse sense than he has ever got credit for. He 
was a Pike county man, and most of them knew 
beans when the bag's open. But that song where 
we hear of Joe as the man who got the mitten is 
the place where he falls down in our estimation. 
Bob Campbell is responsible for a good deal of that, 
for he has give it out cold that the song was com- 
posed out of derision of Joe Bowers after Sally 
had given him the sack. That part's all right enough, 
for Joe was just so broken-hearted that he give him- 
self dead away to the whole camp; but I was there, 
as much as Bob Campbell or any of the rest of them, 
and while I own up that Joe was a fool for saying 
anything about it in a mining camp, I'll tell you a 
little story that will show you that Joe Bowers 
wasn't as big a fool as he looked. 

"One night there was a bunch of us and if I'm 
not mistaken Bob Campbell was there and Ave got 
to talking about things back in old Missouri. Joe 

161 
11 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

Bowers was down in the mouth, and, as I recollect 
it, it was Bill Burbridge who went to rubbin' it into 
him about Sally and the butcher. Bill was from old 
Pike himself and he knew the whole shootin' match 
you hear about in that song. Bill said that Joe had 
been tellin' him that he had heard that Sally had had 
a baby. 'And I have offered to bet Joe,' said Bill, 
'anything he wants to bet, that that baby has got 
red hair, like its daddy.' 

" 'I'd be a damphool,' said Joe Bowers, 'to take 
a bet like that, for 'taint only the butcher that's got 
red hair — Sally's got red hair, too.' 

"It was either me or Bob Campbell who told Bill 
Burbridge he'd never get any bets at evens on that 
game, and that it would be a chump who would take 
him up at any odds. 'Because,' said Bob Campbell 
or me (I disremember which), 'nature always takes 
her course in them kind o' cases.' And we might 
have said more if 01 Tolbert, who was runnin' the 
gambling joint next door, hadn't just then sung out 
a side bet in roulette, 'The red wins.' 

BETTING ON THE RED. 
"If Joe Bowers had stuck to his horse sense he 
mightn't be as famous as he is, but he wouldn't be 
a joke either. Maybe they'd cuss him like they do 
me, but they wouldn't laugh at him, or pass ironical 
resolutions, and go through ironical motions, for the 
erection of a monument to his memory. I'd a bet 
everything I could beg, borrow or steal that that 
baby was going to have red hair. You've heard me 
say before now that when I know a thing I know it, 
and nothing will ever get me out of that habit ex- 
cept missing out in the game oftener than I hit it. 
Maybe if that baby hadn't had red hair it might have 
shook my confidence in myself, but everybody up 

1G2 



EGGS AND EXPERTS. 

in Pike knows that that boy's head would 'a set fire 
to a water tank. I seen it myself, and ever since 
then, whenever my opinions is based on the course of 
rfatnre, I just stick to 'em and wait for nature to 
take her course, no matter how many gentlemen of 
veracity enter the same kind of sweeping and em- 
phatic denials that Mose Wetmore does when he is 
getting ready to sell out to a trust. It never makes 
any difference to me what they say whenever I get 
my nose to the ground and find the direction of the 
waterfall, for that's the course of nature, and my 
money goes on nature every time, no matter whether 
nature expresses herself in red-headed babies or in 
politics, for I know she expresses herself in every- 
thing and always according to her own laws. 

"I was betting on the red Avhen I said that Kohn 
& Co. got the interest on the government bonds they 
bought from Missouri, which were sold as a private 
speculation, in defiance of the legislature and of pub- 
lic opinion, without authority of law, and at a price 
so far below the market price for bonds on that 
day, that it was a dead open and shut that some of 
the men who were acting for Missouri had sold out 
the state. They made a raging bluff at first, but na- 
ture had to take her course, and now they have ad- 
mitted that the tail went with the hide, and that 
Kohn & Co. got the interest, and that the price they 
did pay for the bonds and the accrued interest was 
away below the market price. A dead silence has 
fallen upon them all in that direction. They want 
to change the subject. They want to talk about 
something else, and I'll be darned if it isn't a fact 
that there is something else to talk about, and I'm 
goin' to talk about it before I- get through talkin' to- 
night. But whenever nature is takin' her course, and 
you want to bet on the place she will bring up at, 

1G3 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

you can't just fall in on her trail at any place that 
suits your convenience and go on from there. If 
you're goin' to be up to date you've got to know all 
the things that's gone before the date you start in at. 
I'll show you the processes of evolution that has 
made the Democratic party so rotten that when 
they lifted the lid off of it at Independence, every 
body in the state took hold of their noses and held 
on until they slammed the lid on again so hard that 
they cracked the pot in doing it; and from now on 
the smell will be coming out on the installment plan. 

"I always begin a thing at the beginning. Even 
in religion, although it looks only to the future, some 
of them want a pointer on the past. Parson Bradley 
was the preacher of a Baptist congregation in Boone 
county .before the war. He always had a revival in 
winter, and sometimes he would work in an extra 
one in summer. It was at one of the summer re- 
vivals he brought Tom Liston to see the error of his 
ways. Tom was known to have done a great many 
things in his life which were not good in the sight 
of the Lord, and it was suspected that he had done 
a great many more of them kind of things than any 
of the folks in Boone county knew about. So the 
night he went forward there was a big sensation, 
and the congregation had its ears pricked up to hear 
what revelations he would make in his 'experience.' 
When the parson whispered in the ear of Tom and 
told him he was expected to make confession of his 
sins and the repentance that had brought him to the 
throne of grace. Tom said he didn't know he had to 
do that or he wouldn't have come forward. So the 
parson he up and said to the congregation : 

" 'Brother Liston is not willing to tell his experi- 
ence. To make sure of his salvation, through the 
washing away of sin, we will not baptize him until 

164 



EGGS AND EXPERTS. 

after the fall rains, when there's more water in the 
creek.' 

CARDWELL'S REVELATIONS. 
"Some of them have been telling their 'experience' 
up at Independence, and their confessions are enough 
to call for heavy rains all over the state. But they 
couldn't get the creeks high enough in Missouri to 
baptize the gang unto a life everlasting, for none of 
them have told a patchin of what has been agoin' on 
in the last half a dozen years, and not one of them 
has gone back to the primal sin, which was the first 
committed by the party after it was restored to 
power, and that it was in the sale of them bonds. 
They knew that we were all in exactly that condition 
of mind, on getting back into control of the state, 
that all they had to do was to say 'Count Rodman' 
or 'Drake constitution' and we'd all come arunnin'. 
no matter what they did. The way we used to all 
come a runnin' whenever the Democratic party lead- 
ers in this state blew the horn reminds me of a ser- 
vice I once saw Pete Trone hold in Shelby's camp. 
The chaplain had noticed that we were growing away 
from grace a little faster than he thought we ought 
to, and it was a Sunday morning he was giving it 
to us on the line that we had a worse enemy than 
the Yankees, and one that we ought to fight harder. 
'I would rather,' said he, 'see you fight the devil 
more and the Yankees less.' Right at that point we 
(heard a volley, and we knew our picket line was 
bein' attacked. The congregation broke up, and the 
parson yelled above all the infernal roar, 'Come on, 
boys. We'll fight the Yankees to-day and the devil 
to-morrow.' 

"That's the way we've been doing in Missouri for 
thirty years. 'Tain't because we haven't seen the 

165 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

devil's horns and hoofs a-stickin' out at us time and 
time again. We seen it on the bond deal, because 
we're not fools, and we can see a thing as quick as 
anybody, 'specially when it's a plain as that was. 
We all seen that the devil was a-fixin' up that law of 
1883, which give them the power to move school 
moneys out of the revenue fund into the school fund, 
and from there into the sinking fund. The devil it 
was sure, that was fixing up that temptation to sin. 
We all saw it. But about the time we made up 
our minds to fight the devil and all his works, some- 
body would give the alarm that the Republicans were 
coming, we'd hear a few shots, and the congregation 
would break up and the parson would tell us that 
the devil could wait. That's the way we've been 
goin' on. 

"But there's one excuse for us. We didn't know 
how badly it really was. When I commenced hunt- 
ing up the evidence in this case I got a pretty good 
idea of what Bill Phelps meant when he talked about 
sucking the eggs and hiding the shells. I found out 
before the experts did that there was no entry in the 
books of Missouri of the transactions of very near 
$4,000,000 with the New York firm of Kohn, Popper 
& Co. Of course, they wouldn't believe me when I 
told 'em so in the campaign of last year, because 
they didn't want to, but now they've gone and paid 
several thousand dollars to experts to sell them the 
same thing I told them for nothing. Well, now, 
that's bad enough. Hiding the shells in the politics 
and administration of this state commenced in the 
Democratic party before either Bill Phelps or Bill 
Stone cut any figure in it, and bear that in mind, 
for I am going to show you, before I stop talking, 
the evolution from* selling state property the legisla- 
ture didn't want to sell to selling the legislature 

166 



EGGS AND EXPERTS. 

itself. And, to understand the whole thing, I have 
been hunting for a month back to find them egg shells 
that the books of Missouri show were hidden some- 
where. I had my money bet on the red, and I wasn't 
goin' to let go of it until they could show me that 
nature hadn't took her course. 

FINDING THE SHELLS. 

"Where do you reckon I found them shells? No- 
where in Missouri. I had to go to Washington, and 
the thing that started me there was their claim that 
the government bonds were due and had been called 
in for cancellation by the secretary of the treasury. 
I didn't believe it. It was a lie invented to excuse 
a usurpation and a deliberate defiance of the people 
and their elected representatives. I sized it up that 
if the bonds were on the point of cancellation Kohn, 
Poper & Co. would not have paid any premium at all 
for them, and, in fact, would not have bought them 
at all. Deducting the accrued interest, which went 
with the bonds, from the total premium, Kohn & Co. 
paid, although they paid away below the market, 
$200,000 more than the face of the bonds. I could 
see it plain enough that if the treasury had called 
these bonds in, it would have to be a crazy man that 
would pay a premium for them, and then I saw that, 
on the day of sale, the class of bonds to which these 
bonds of ours belonged, ranged from 15 to 20 per cent 
premium. 'This is a bull con they're aranning here,' 
said I to myself, says I; 'and if them bonds were due 
for cancellation Kohn & Co. would not have bought 
them at all. When Jim Seibert got Mr. Popper to 
come out here a few weeks ago to take up this bond 
matter, and put up a defense for the Democrats, I 
was waiting to see what Mr. Popper would have to 
say in explanation of his queer conduct in buying a 

1G7 



I 

STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

■ 
lot of bonds that had been called in. I wanted to 

know if he was the same kind of a financier that Dan 
Moore was, who used to live over in Audrain county. 
Dan bought a horse that was no good, and it died 
on his hands the first week he had it. The one thing 
that consoled Dan was that he wouldn't have to feed 
it, and I was wondering if Mr. Popper was going to 
say that he paid a premium on the bonds just be- 
cause it wouldn't cost him anything to keep them, 
when I got word, that he had left St. Louis and re- 
turned to New York without saying a word. I had 
seen it stated in the Republic that he had come out 
here for the purpose of explaining the whole deal v 
and I wondered why he hadn't done it. 

"I packed up my red and yellow carpet sack, and 
started for Washington. I had got to the point by 
that time of knowiDg that nature was taking her 
course, and of being willing to bet that the baby was 
going to have red hair. I could see that red head 
before I got over the mountains, and when I got to 
Washington I got another illustration of the fact 
that whenever you bet that nature is going to take 
her course it's like finding money if you can get any- 
body to bet with you. I have practiced in all the de- 
partments at Washington in my time and I knew how 
to make the necessary professional connections to 
get a lawyer to take a squint at the records of the 
treasury and see when those bonds were redeemed 
and in whose favor. I had a complete list of at 
least three-fourths of them, numbered in their order, 
and the result of the investigation was astounding. 
Not one of the bonds was redeemed for years after 
the sale. A number of them went into the hands of 
national banks as security for circulation. The ten 
bonds numbered from 4845 to 4854 for $1000 each 
were finally redeemed by the First National Bank of 

168 



EGGS AND EXPERTS. 

New York. The National Bank of Norwalk, Conn., 
got $10,000 worth of the bonds by transfer. The 
Dry Docks Savings Bank of New York, got $10,000. 
The National Park Bank got the same. A like 
amount went to the National Broadway Bank of 
New York. Same to the Poughkeepsie Savings 
Bank. Most of the bonds went to the banks I have 
mentioned, the trustees of the London Assurance 
corporation and Drexel, Morgan & Co., Vermilye & 
Co. of New York got Nos. 781, 782, 823, 824, 853 to 
857, 787 to 793, 818, 819, 821, 825. The treasurer of 
the State of Maine bought Nos. 778 and 779. The 
Dime Savings Bank of New York took in the num- 
bers from 771 to 774, inclusive. The Howard Insur- 
ance Company of New York bought bond 776 for 
$10,000. In short, nearly every one of our bonds is 
accounted for as having been in circulation for years 
after they were sold by the fund commissioners for 
$70,000 less than they were worth according to the 
current market prices, on the day they were sold. 
Who got the rake-off? I have found the shells, but 
who sucked the eggs? 

THE EVOLUTION OF BROWN. 
"Now, if I hadn't been nearly as big a fool as 
Thompson's colt, that swam the river to get a drink, 
do you reckon I'd a put off finding these shells, or 
even looking for 'em until this late day? Do you 
reckon I'd a blinked at the sale o' them bonds with- 
out inquirin' the price and wantin' to know why we 
couldn't get the market price, if the bonds were still 
to run, and what in the devil Kohn & Co. wanted 
with them if they didn't have some time to run yet? 
If I hadn't been as full of vulgar and ignorant po- 
litical prejudice as the Republic is full of the pic- 
tures of Pave Francis, I would have got right up 

1G9 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

then and said: 'Here, I'm from Missouri, and you've 
got to show me about this thing; or, if you can't, 
there's enough of us like me around here to sink you 
into kingdom come.' Say, instead of doing that, 
we would go to the place where the egg suckers 
would have a man to make us a speech, who would 
wave his arms and lift up his voice and cry out to 
us to stand by the old party, stand by the lost but 
not dishonored cause, stand by the holy memories 
which clustered around the graves of our^ heroic 
dead. And we'd throw up our hats and yell while the 
pickpockets who werei working up all the excitement 
were going through our pockets. I never think of 
them days that I don't think of the time Riley Elk- 
ins got his pocket picked at a Democratic meeting 
at Moberly. Riley was one of us who was standing 
by the holy memories, and didn't care a damn about 
the price of United States bonds. He took up with 
a stranger who swore that McNeil was worse than 
Benedict Arnold, and Riley flashed a roll in front of 
him. When they got into the crowd in front of the 
stand another fellow picked a quarrel with Riley, 
and while he had his hands up his pocket was 
picked. But he didn't see the connection, and I 
guess he's voting the straight ticket yet. 

"Along in 1883, seeing how we took the hook, with 
that kind of bait on it, they put through another 
conversion of the school fund, and this time they 
just put the key of the state treasury in their pockets 
and walked off with it. They give themselves the 
power to take any money out of the school fund 
they found in there, 'from any source whatever,' and 
that was nothing more nor less than opening the 
treasury and giving them the combination to the 
Lock. I gagged a good deal at that. I could see 
that nature was goin' to take her course again, and 

170 



EGGS AND EXPERTS. 

that there was sure to be another red-headed baby 
in the family; but I went to a meeting and was 
asked to stand by the holy memories, and I done 
it. And if you want to see that red-headed baby, 
I'll tell you two places where you can find it. One 
is in Auditor Walker's report, where he reports the 
moving of over $200,000 out of the revenue fund into 
the school fund, and from there into the sinking 
fund 'for the liquidation of debt,' and where he also 
reports that all of the bond cancellations of 1885 
and 1886 were made out of other funds than the 
school fund. You can see the red-head again in the 
Allen part of the expert report when the auditor 
admits that bond cancellations have not been coin- 
cident with the issuing of certificates of indebtedness 
to the school fund. I saw that red-head a-comin' in 
1883, but I let my fool prejudice keep my mouth shut, 
and I kept a-hopin' and a-prayin' that the Lord 
would reverse the laws of nature in this case. I 
didn't expect it, but I kept on prayin' that the baby 
wouldn't have red hair; but, oh, Lord, it's so awful 
red that even when I shut my eye I can't fool myself 
that the Lord has listened to me, like Job Hyatt's 
mother thought he did to her. She was a good old 
lady who lived down in Bollinger county, and she 
had a son Job, who came out of the war with a 
wooden leg on him. He married the girl he had left 
behind him, and the only cloud in his mother's sky 
was that his wooden leg might be an inheritance 
of his posterity. But the old lady had a heart of 
gold, and kept her secret anxiety to herself, irom 
everybody but the preacher, who she asked to pray 
the Lord to save the children. He put up a prayer 
which, he told her, was sure to be answered, because 
it was made in perfect faith that it would be. But 
nothing would satisfy the old woman until the little 

171 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

stranger that put in an apearance was discovered to 
have two well developed flesh and blood legs on him. 
Then the old lady threw up her hands and cried: 
'Bless the Lord for that; he has turned aside the 
law unto them that have faith.' 

"But I can't get any such satisfaction as that poor 
ignorant old woman got. I know the law has not 
been suspended, and never will be. A red-headed 
baby was born in 1883 because nature took her course, 
and he turned up at Kansas City the other day and 
registered in the name of E. O. Brown. That E. O. 
Brown is several red-headed babies done up in one 
package. He is the natural consequence of what we 
were doing a quarter of a century ago when we were 
allowin' the state officers to burglarize the school 
fund, to take property out of there which the legis- 
lature had refused the state the right to take, and to 
sell it for less than the market price. He saw the 
thing done. It was a bold daylight robbery. The 
burglar didn't run, but he walked down the street 
and we didn't ever cry 'Stop, thief!' as he went by 
us, because he had it fixed that, as he came out with 
the boodle, a band turned the corner that was play- 
ing 'Dixie,' and we all raised the rebel yell. 

"Brown is an evolution. He is the natural result 
of the laws that we have all seen working before 
our eyes and made no effort to counteract because 
these fellows who never smelt Yankee powder in 
their lives have been appealing to us to stand by the 
men in gray. Last year they turned down Frank- 
Pitts, who lost an arm with Stonewall Jackson, be- 
cause he lived up to his official oath as state treas- 
urer, and they couldn't trust him as auditor, and 
they put in that place a man who had been Jim Sei- 
bert's chief clerk for a long time. There's a red- 
headed baby in that, too. You can't make cats out 
of rabbits. Nature takes her course every time. 

172 



EGGS AND EXPERTS, 

THE SHELL GAME. 

"That's why we've got Brown. I've had such a 
time hunting the shells on these two bond deals that 
I've only had time to dip into this Cardwell business 
once, but that was often enough to let me find the 
course of nature in the- case. Sunday two weeks 
ago I put it out cold that Col. Phelps was trying to 
pull the thing off. Everybody else thought he was 
the man behind the scenes who was pulling the 
strings that worked the dancing figures on the stage. 
The colonel is pretty good at that sort of manipula- 
tion, and in the beginning he was the man behind the 
curtain on this deal. I am sure of it. Stephens was 
in on it, too. The men they had started out after 
were sometimes the same, and sometimes different. 
Stephens was camping on the trail of Sam Cook; 
Phelps was after Stone. But between you and me 
he was just as much after Dockery and John Carroll, 
and he had to go after Seibert, not because he wanted 
to do up Seibert, but because he hoped that if he 
ever got Seibert on the stand he would bring out 
the corporation contributions to the Dockery cam- 
paign fund, and show up that while Dockery was 
swatting the trusts at the forks of the creek and de- 
manding in thunder tones a corporation franchise 
tax in Missouri, both the trusts and the franchise 
corporations were putting up their money to elect 
him. Then he wanted to hit the trail of John Carroll 
as king of the lobby in the first Dockery legislature. 
There's a big story in that. I've told a good deal 
of it, but Phelps wanted to bring it out under an 
oath by state and committee officials. 

"I don't believe that Phelps started out after Stone. 
'Tain't that he loves Stone. He is against him on 
every proposition, but he started out this thing on 
another trail. Stephens wanted to go on the stand, 

173 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

and hurried back from New York to get a chance. 
But before that, and after Sam Cook and some 
others had testified, and it was known that Seibert 
was the man they were after, a tremendous pressure 
was brought to bear to put a stop to the whole thing. 
As soon as Stephens struck St. Louis the interests 
in that town which very often influence him were 
put on to him to get him to use his pull with Phelps 
to call the thing off. None of them down there 
seemed to know how bad Stephens wanted to tell 
that story about Sam Cook and the breeders' bill. 
It had to come out, and that is the principal reason 
why Brown didn't show up a week earlier than he 
did. I'm givin' it to you hot off the wire in tellin' 
you that. It's nature taking her course again, and 
maybe we'll get another red-headed baby out of it. 

I said that there was a pool of the Burlington and 
the Missouri Pacific in the mad rush to put terminal 
facilities to the Cardwell suit. There is a community 
of interest there always, on political lines, and 
Phelps found that he was without underpinning to 
stand the storm. He made a bluff at calling the 
thing off or urging Walsh to call it off, but Walsh 
didn't scare at the bluff, and Cardwell said that 
bluffs would not go, and that nothing but cash bets 
would be considered. It couldn't be shut off until 
niter Stephens had his say. After that Stephens 
wanted it called off as much as anybody, particu- 
larly when it got up close to the transit consolida- 
tion deal, and there were relatives of Stephens in St. 
Louis who were as anxious as he was to not let the 
tlpng go too far in that direction. Stephens being 
one of the main reliances of Phelps in state politics, 
what he said to the deposed king of the lobby was 
apt to go a long way, and everybody knew it. 



ITt 



EGGS AND EXPERTS. 

It did. Brown didn't show up until the ex-gov- 
ernor had sung his little song. And before the Lord, 
that was the funniest proceeding I ever read about. 
Do you hope to fool men of sense with such monkey 
performances? Depositions give a man opportunity 
to say anything he wants to, but whenever a ques- 
tion got to Stephens that would lead up to these other 
things I have been telling about, Walsh would ob- 
ject to his answering, and the ex-governor would at 
once fall back behind the objection raised. Why, it's 
as plain as daylight that Walsh had his cue to ob- 
ject to everything except the line which had been 
indicated to him as the line that Stephens was anx- 
ious to testify on. The stage machinery was all be- 
hind the scenes, but it creaked so loud in putting the 
thing through the motions that it was given dead 
away. It all reminded me of a show I saw at Iron- 
ton one night during the war. They were trying 
to show off a storm, and the machine they made 
the thunder with groaned so you could hear it all 
over the house. Ted Pritehett, who was in our party, 
asked what made the moaning. 

"Oh," said Tom Ford, of Warren county, "that's 
the wind that can't get out of the box, and it makes 
more noise than that that does." 

Which isn't saying, by a long shot, that Stephens 
didn't release enough of it to raise a cyclone. He 
did make some of them hunt their cellars, and it is 
all up with Sammy Cook now. He got to the cellar, 
but Stephens blew his house down on him. Sammy 
is a hasbeen, a back number on the files, a two-spot 
found in a last year's bird's nest. And it doesn't 
add to his peace of mind a bit for him to know that 
Stephens was the prime mover in his downfall. But 
he knows it all right enough. I have played no 
favorites in that game, but I knew where the feud 

175 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

commenced, and what it fed on, and I can give it out 
cold, and give the story to back it up if anybody 
calls my hand, that justice between man and man 
has been done in this destruction of Cook by .Ste- 
phens, and that the ex-governor has played his hand 
well. If he hadn't, particularly on the stand, he and 
Cook might go together and be buried in one grave, 
which would have to be a mighty wide one to accom- 
modate them. 

THE GUM SHOE. 

Where the gum strikes in on this trial is an in- 
teresting point for me. Phelps found that he was 
up against it in his own company. Mart Clardy 
was attorney for Seibert, and also the attorney of 
the Missouri Pacific railroad. He was in favor of 
calling the thing off after the first hearing, and he 
didn't give a damn for Stephens, either. Phelps did 
a lot of telephoning to Walsh, but it didn't count, 
and Phelps said that nothing but the long green 
would fill the hole. They went to work to raising it, 
and they raised it not only among the corporations 
of Missouri which are in the line of legislative as- 
sault, but among the bankers and brokers who are 
associated with such interests. They went around 
and passed the hat, and I can find men who will go 
on the stand and swear to it. This money was put 
in the hands of Phelps for delivery where it would do 
the most good. Who Phelps got to deliver it is a 
question which is a groat deal more interesting than 
it is important. What is both interesting and im- 
portant is that letter of Bill Stone defending all of 
the transactions which were exposed at Independ- 
ence, which apeared in the Republic the day after 
Card well withdrew his suit. All of the testimony 
was in three days before that. It was known what 
had been brought out, but the Lord only knew what 

17G 



EGGS AND EXPERTS, 

was. going to be brought out if Seibert and Stone 
had to go on the stand, and this man Walsh, with all 
of his intimate knowledge of the ground floor work 
in the Democratic state committee, was to put the 
screws to them. There's where your gum shoe fit 
in exactly. William J. was apealed to by both Sam 
Cook and Jim Seibert to come to their rescue. They 
wanted him to defend them against the charges of 
corruption, and try to make the boys at the forks 
of the creeks believe that the corporations had been 
handing over money to the Democratic state com- 
mittee to help it put them out of business. They 
told him that he was the only man in Missouri who 
could induce the mossbacks to believe that Sam 
Priest, as the attorney of the consolidated street 
railways of St. Louis, had given thousands of dollars 
to support an antitrust platform in 1S98 just out 
of a desire to see the party succeed and without any 
pledge that it was not to oppose the street railway 
consolidation bill. 

William saw the danger of rushing into the fight 
until it was all over. He wanted an assurance that 
the deposition mill was to stop running. He was in 
consultation with Clardy and Seibert in person, and 
had frequent talks with Sam Cook over the wire. 
W T hen he got the word that the whole thing was off, 
he rushed down to the Republic office the copy of the 
brief he had written in the pleadings in defense of 
Seibert and Cook, and the other men now indicted 
before the people of Missouri. Stone is about as 
much of a criminal lawyer as he is a corporation 
lawyer on technical points. It is my opinion that 
the whole outfit of bunco steerers, flim-fiammers and 
egg suckers are on their last legs. The men who 
suck eggs and hide the shells to-day are the legiti- 
mate descendents of those who did it in 1875. But 



L2 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

they are not going to walk off with it like the old 
fellows did. The men who sucked the eggs they 
found in the government bonds walked around with 
the yellow streaks on their chins, after they had 
hid the shells. The men who sucked the eggs they 
moved out of the revenue fund into the school fund 
and from there into the sinking fund, wiped their 
mouths on their sleeves and you could see a long 
yellow streak there for a long time afterwards. But 
we weren't particular then. We weren't through 
fighting the war yet. I guess we're through now. 
If we ain't, we're not going to have eggs enough left 
in this state to make an omelet. We can save the 
shells and hatch another expert out of them. I 
would call Stone's defense of boodling and sandbag- 
ging a mistake if I was not sure that everybody 
else thinks so. You all know it, so there's no use 
a-telling you so. I think it is the end of Bill Stone 
and I believe that William himself will begin to see 
it before long, when the details of these transactions 
begin to come out. And they're a-comin, I'm hunting 
more shells. 



i rs 



SCHOOL FUND LOOT, 



THE "OLD POLITICIAN " PUTS FINISHING 
TOUCHES TO FRAUD AND PRETENCE. 



How the Chief Witnesses lor the Defense Impeach 
Themselves and One Another. 



Where the Rat was Caught— Supt. Shannon's Shower 
of Bricks— Interest Deducted from Premium. 



[From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.] 
JEFFERSON CITY, MO., December 7.— "I've 
caught the rat," said the Old Politician. "The trap 
I used set the Republic to figuring interest and 
premium on the government bonds we sold when we 
began laying the ground floor for the sinking of 
the school fund in the sinking fund. I figured it 
out that we got less than 12 per cent premium, when 
the marKet premium was away up over 15 per cent. 
I knew I was right on the general proposition, but if 
I had made my figures capable of a mathematical 
demonstration the dignified silence we would have 
had on the other side would have been like that of 
Jack Weatherford up in Grundy county the time he 
was running for office. The editor of the opposi- 
tion paper had Jack's record in his hatband, and he 
give it out on the installment plan. He said that 
Jack was a horsethief and also a perjurer, and that 
he came to Grundy county as a fugitive x from jus- 
tice. The committee told Jack he would have to 
take it up or get off the ticket. 

170 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

" 'I've challenged him,' said Jack, 'to tell the color 
of the horse he says I stole. If he can't do it, the 
whole charge falls to the ground.' 

" 'They fired him off, but as long as the world 
stands men of his type will attempt the old trick, 
and I have known it for, lo, these many years. And 
I was dead sure that the error in the figures would 
smoke 'em out. I didn't have to wait long. 'Since 
when,' the Republic asked, 'has $242,366 come to be 
less than 12 per cent of $1,671,600? A premium of 
$242,366,' it said, 'is exactly 14.49 per cent.' I told 
'em to go up head, for they had turned down the 
whole class, as the rest of us had been calculating 
that the interest which Kohn & Co. got, along with 
the principal, ought to be set off against the total 
premium, and that would bring it down to somewhere 
about 9.9. 'Wrong again,' cried the little school- 
marm of the Republic, clapping her hands in rapture, 
'for, taking out the interest due, the premium would 
be 11.29.' And right then the trap was sprung. 

THE RAT SQUEAKED. 
"The next day the rat squeaked. If you have ever 
seen a caged rat nosing around for an opening to get 
out, you must have had some temptation, if you are 
a man of any feeling, to open the door and let him 
go. That's the way I felt about the Republic for a 
few days. But as I always have to kill a rat, in spite 
of my feelings, for the good of society, I can make no 
exception in this case, although the squeaking has 
appealed to me. 'Kohn & Co. never got the interest.' 
the Republic squeaked, 'and the books will show that 
they paid it to the school fund.' The next day it 
squeaked that the premium on the bonds in- 
cluded the premium on the interest, and that 
Kohn & Co. paid premium on the interest due on tin' 

180 



SCHOOL FUND LOOT. 

bonds, which will show you how badly the rat was 
scared, and the desperate attempts it was making 
to get out of the trap. They couldn't name the book, 
or the page of the book, or the set of books it be- 
longed to, but they were sure it was there. Where 
the trap closed up tight, was at the place in the 
expert report, where it is said that the books of 
state show nothing of an account of the transactions 
with Kohn & Co. Another place where the trap was 
closed was in the extract from the books of Kohn 
& Co., which appears in the expert report, on page 
47 of the statistical exhibit, showing that the only 
interest ever paid by Kohn & Co. to the state of Mis- 
souri, amounted to just $1750. That was all. And 
the interest due on the government bonds, on the day 
they were delivered to Kohn & Co., was not two 
thousand dollars short of $50,000. 

"Then came Shannon. Shannon is a man who 
works hard without knowing it". He always reminds 
me, in an argument, of the Irish hodcarrier, who was 
asked if his work did not tire him. 'Begod,' said he, 
as he pointed up to the bricklayers at the top of a 
four-story building, 'it's the min up there who do all 
of the wurruk.' But Shannon does the sweating. 
And he sweats blood. He carried the hod on this 
deal, and did most of the work of putting up the 
house, but he didn't want to do it, and the brick- 
layers on the top got a darned sight more money out 
of it than he ever did. But every time this question 
is brought up he rushes to the front with his old 
hod on his shoulders, and goes to carrying a lot of 
bricks up the ladder, when there's no call for it. 
And he slips, and stumbles, and let's the bricks fall 
on the beads of the- people who are boosting him 
up the ladder. He let a whole hodful fall on the 
heads of his party last Monday, when he tried to 
climb the ladder and stumbled at the third floor. 

isi 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

CASE CLINCHED. 

"The Republic, inspired from the statehouse, had 
said that Kohn & Co. paid all of the interest due 
on the bonds at the date of transfer into the school 
moneys of the state. They figured it out at nearly 
nearly $45,000. The expert report settled that claim 
by showing that the only record of interest ever paid 
by Kohn & Co. to Missouri was in the firm's own 
books, and was for only $1750. Nothing more was 
needed to clinch the case. The nail was driven home. 
The dog's eyes was sot. But as soon as I saw that 
Shannon was starting up the ladder with a hod on 
his shoulder I knew that there was going to be a 
shower right away, and that people who didn't stand 
from under were sure to get hurt. And, sure enough, 
when he was about half way up, the bricks com- 
menced falling so thick that none of the anxious 
crowd below, all of whom were looking up to see how 
the thing would work, got away without a broken 
head. The biggest brick in the whole lot was big 
enough to cover the whole gang, and that's just 
what it did. 'The schools of the state did get that 
interest,' says Shannon, 'out of the premium paid 
for the bonds, and that's as plain as daylight' True 
for you, Shannon; that's just what it is. and that's 
just what I said at the start. They wouldn't believe 
me. The Republic calculated that $242,366 was 14.49 
per cent premium on the bonds, arid, of course, it 
was if there was nothing to come out of it. If the 
interest was added to that $242,366, and made a part 
of the premium, then the premium would be more 
than 14y 2 per cent, wouldn't it, Shannon? It would 
lie about 3 per cent more, wouldn't it? But tho> 
auditor s;iys it was 1-1 '/ 2 , the Republic says 
ii was 14y 2 , and you say it was 14%. Well, 

1S2 



SCHOOL FUND LOOT. 

then, since the interest was not added to the pre- 
mium, it's a dead sure shot it was deducted from 
it, or, rather, made a part of it. When you talk about 
making the interest due on bonds a part of the 
premium on the same bonds, Shannon, you've got to 
have either addition or subtraction in the case. 
There's no getting away from that. One or the other 
has got to come as sure as you're born. It can't 
be a part of the apparent premium without being ad- 
ded to or taken from the real premium. You can't 
eat your cake and keep it, too. You can't include in- 
terest in premium without putting the premium up 
or down. And, since you all have figured it out that 
the premium was 14%, including the interest, deduct 
the amount of the interest due on the bonds at that 
time, almost $50,000, and you find that the real pre- 
mium paid on them bonds was less than 12 per cent — 
11.29 the Republic figures it. There's where the rat 
died. 

A FEW MORE BRICKS. 

"It has not squeaked since the Shannon shower. 
You see nothing and hear nothing more of the claim 
that the United States bonds in the school fund were 
sold at 14y 2 per cent premium. They do not dare 
to keep up that claim, in view of the report of their 
own experts, of the books of Kohn & Co. and their 
own confessions. If they did, Shannon has dropped 
a few more bricks out of the hod to settle them at 
short notice. To tell the truth, every time they have 
opened their head Shannon has had a brick for it. 
Of course, he doesn't mean it that way, but every 
time' he makes a confession it costs him and his 
party dear, and reminds me of a story I have heard 
of Col. Boulware, of Fulton. Col. Boulware is one 
of the most able and eminent criminal lawyers in 

1S3 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

the West, whose light is too brilliant to be hid under 
a bushel, but who has a criminal practice in most of 
the states west of the Mississippi. Once he was de- 
fending a man in one of the counties on the Missouri 
border of Kansas against a charge of murder. I 
have heard it said that Col. Boulware would a great 
deal rather clear a guilty man than an innocent one. 
There is more of professional pride and glory in it, 
and I have heard him say that a guilty man is al- 
ways willing to shell out a bigger fee than a man 
who knows he is innocent and thinks the world ought 
to help him prove it. This fellow who had retained 
him out in west Missouri kept a sticking to it that 
he was innocent, but when the colonel put him under 
a private cross-examination he made so many dam- 
aging admissions and contradicted himself so often 
that the colonel was satisfied of his guilt, and his 
profesional enthusiasm was aroused. It was a very 
difficult case to handle, though, and the more he 
tried to train the fellow the oftener he blundered. 
At last the colonel said one day, after a rehearsal in 
which he had taken the part of the state's attorney, 
with the prisoner on the witness stand, says he: 'If 
you can be as big a damphool to the jury as you are 
to me, I'll put you on the stand, and they'll never 
hang you. That's the only way I can save your 
neck.' 

SHANNON "ALL RIGHT." 

"And that is the same kind of reasoning that has 
always made me think that it wasn't Shannon who 
got the swag of them two bond deals. If it had 
been he wouldn't be always bobbing up and giving 
himself dead away as he does. I know it is not 
always a safe thing to acquit men on that kind of rea- 
soning. The jury that acquitted Col. Boulware's 

184 



SCHOOL FUND LOOT. 

client made a mistake, but I have always insisted 
that Shannon's telling- the truth the way he does 
ought to acquit him, whether he is guilty or not. 
Shannon is the best hand at telling the truth that I 
know of, because it comes out of him unconsciously. 
He never intends telling too much of it, but he meets 
with accidents because he allows himself to get mad 
and splutter. He starts out with the best intention 
in the world to distort a fact about something, and 
before he gets through he has revealed a fact his 
friends have tried to conceal. The story of the in- 
terest is one of them. In the same pile of bricks 
are the market quotations he cited to prove that 
he did not buy the state bonds above the market 
price. Nobody ever said he did, but I have said, 
and still say, that the evidence of conspiracy and 
betrayal in that case is in the facts, admitted by 
Shannon, that the state board of education made no 
effort to buy any of these state bonds which were 
being sold by the fund commissioners in 1875, until 
after they had all been sold to private parties, at a 
discount. Then the state comes in and buys these 
same bonds of Kohn & Co. at a premium, paying the 
New Yorkers $20,000 more for the bonds than the 
state could have got them at two weeks earlier. 
Shannon starts out to misrepresent the facts in the 
case, and makes references to dates, but he begins 
dropping bricks before he is past the second-story 
windows. He names dates on which the Missouri 
bonds were quoted higher in the market than the 
price he paid, and gets people to look up them dates. 
And, of course, while they're at it, they conclude to 
see what the price of the government bonds was on 
the same days. And that's where Shannon drops 
another brick, and hits the Republic so square be- 
tween the eyes that it looks like it's got three eyes 
185 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

now. Both the Globe-Democrat and Republic of 
November 13, 1875, the day on which, the Republic 
and Shannon say, the government bonds were sold, 
show bond quotations on the St. Louis and New 
York market. Both of their reports are 'corrected 
by P. F. Kelleher & Co., bankers and brokers, 307 
North Fourth street,' so you see there's no room for 
argument between them. And both of them say 
that on that day when our government bonds went, 
according to Shannon and the Republic, at less than 
112, the selling price of the 5-20 government 6s of 
1886 was 116%. We were just about 5 per cent be- 
low the market on two-thirds of the bonds we sold, 
for $1,150,000 of our bonds were 6s of 1865, registered 
in the name of State Treasurer Bishop. 

LOSS TO THE STATE. 
Now, I'm going to do a little more figuring. That 
5 per cent loss on the 1865 6s was $57,500. Then we 
had $151,100 in government 6s of 1865, registered in 
the name of the state board of education and of 
State Treasurer Dallmeyer, on which the loss of 5 
per cent amounted to $7555. Our 5-20 bonds of 1864, 
amounting to $152,000, which we sold at less than 
112 on the 13th of November, 1875, were worth on the 
market that day 114y 2 . Our loss was about 3 per 
cent and amounted to $4560. Then we had $13,000 
in bonds of 1867. According to the market reports, 
"corrected by P. F. Kelleher & Co.," they were worth 
121% on the day we sold them for less than 112. 
Our loss on that deal then was about $1300. In our 
batch of bonds were others of which I have not been 
able to find a record, but these I name I have got 
nailed down, and you can add it up for yourself to 
find out how much we lost in selling them at the 
figures Shannon and the Republic say we got. How 

1SG 



SCHOOL FUND LOOT. 

much is it? On the issues of 1865, $65,055; on the 
issue of 1864, $4560; on the issue of 1867, $1300. Total 
$70,915. Add this to the profits of Kohn & Co. on 
the other bonds I have enumerated, and their profits 
of about $20,000 on the state bonds, in two weeks, 
and you can see it was about $100,000 of Missouri 
money they walked away with. 

These are not my figures. They are the figures 
which appeared in the Missouri Republican of No- 
vember 13, 1875, "corrected by P. F. Kelleher & Co., 
bankers and brokers, 307 North Fourth street." It 
makes no answer, to them to put the "Old Politician" 
a-roosting. on the limb of a tree in a Republic pic- 
ture. If you ever get me to roosting on a limb you 
can bet your last nickel that I won't take a saw and 
saw the limb off, like Shannon and the Republic do. 
If I'm going to hit the ground, somebody else will 
have to do the sawing, and nobody has done it yet. 
I never in my life saw a finer piece of work in the 
way of sawing off of that kind than the Republic 
did when it took me up on the assertion that this 
sale of government bonds was done under cover be- 
cause it was known that if it was submitted to the 
legislature there was every prospect that it would 
be defeated. What I said last Sunday was that 
"none of us knew what was being hatched until the 
whole thing was done. They were afraid to lay it 
before the legislature, because they knew if they 
did it would at once raise a howl that would frighten 
the legislature from ever agreeing to it. This entire 
thing was done under cover, and that's the worst 
feature about it all." 

MUST "SHOW" MISSOURIANS. 

The Republic quotes that, and then proceeds to 
prove it. It -calls up the effort made in the legisla- 

1S7 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

ture of 1874 to put through a bill "to transfer the 
United States bonds in the school fund to the sink- 
ing fund, and to reimburse the school fund." That 
was a bill to sell the government bonds. What be- 
came of it? They got it through the Senate, but be- 
fore it was discussed in the lower House they com- 
menced hearing from the people. It failed to pass 
the house, and when no effort was made to put it 
through in 1875, we all thought, as a matter of course, 
that we had heard the last of it. That's what made 
me say that none of us knew what was being hatched 
until the whole thing was done; that they were afraid 
to lay it before the legislature again after it had 
once been defeated there. And that's just what they 
were afraid of. If the thing hadn't been brought 
up once and defeated, we wouldn't have been so sure 
of it, but after the scheme had passed the senate, 
and then the people had defeated it in the House, 
we thought they had given it up for good, and we 
never dreamed that they would go ahead and do it 
anyhow, without ever laying it before the legislature 
again, when the legislature was holding annual ses- 
sion, and could have been called in extra session 
at any time by the governor. We were Missourians, 
and we thought we would have to be shown, but 
they didn't show us then, and they're trying to keep 
us from finding it out now. 

What they did was an act of usurpation. With- 
out laying the proposition to sell the bonds again be- 
fore the legislature, they went ahead, in an under- 
hand way, which I use no improper term in denounc- 
ing as conspiracy, in the exercise of a power which 
had been expressly withheld from them in the or- 
ganic law, and which had been denied them by the 
lawmaking power of the state. If you want to see 
the shadow of that conspiracy, read Shannon's com- 
188 



SCHOOL FUND LOOT. 

inunication to the Republic in the issue of November 
4, 1900. He says there that everything was to be 
done quietly. There was to be no publicity about 
the matter, he said, for prudential reasons connected 
with prices. And, he says, when it came to dealing 
with Mr. Popper for the sale of the government bonds, 
the fund commissioners would not deal with Mr. 
Popper directly, but had Mr. Shannon carry his 
figures into them, and then authorized Shannon to 
close with him on the terms he had offered. But 
in order to understand all of that better, you will 
have to read, in that same communication to the 
Republic, of how Shannon had tried to get out of 
this job. The people had condemned the sale. The 
legislature had refused to authorize it. The men be- 
hind the deal had been afraid to resubmit the propo- 
sition to the legislature only a few months earlier. 
And now they were preparing to do that thing which 
they had been refused the power to do, and which 
they knew the people did not want done. I don't 
wonder that the fund commissioners avoided the re- 
sponsibility. Shannon himself tried to avoid it. "I 
protested against the order of the board, and pleaded 
that I be relieved of further responsibility," he says. 
But they nailed him to the cross. They accepted the 
first bid Mr. Popper made, Shannon assures us, and 
he afterwards got it raised $10,000, because he thought 
it too small. And I believe he is telling the truth. 

BLAMES THE "OLD POLITICIAN." 
"Now you can talk all you please about governor 
this and that or senator so and so. Some of them 
are dead, and I will not assail them, but Shannon 
is alive, and him I will defend. He can call me a 
liar until he gets black in the face, a dastard, a 
scoundrel and everything else he can think of, but I 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

understand hiin. He is sensitive because he knows 
he was imposed upon at that time, and made to as- 
sume a responsibility which did not belong to him. 
He knows who is to blame, but he is too much of a 
man and a gentleman to squeal that he got the worst 
of it, or to go about in wild and weak complaining. 
He would rather take it out on me than violate what 
he holds to be an honorable confidence. He is sore 
on the whole question, and whenever the thing is 
brought up he has got to get to the front to try and 
show that it w r as not such a bad thing after all. If 
it relieves him any to jump on to me, I'm willing to 
stand it, for it's my opinion that there's something 
coming to Shannon from somebody. I am sure he'll 
never squeal or turn state's evidence, and if it will 
do him any good I'll agree to be to him w T hat Bill 
Wells was to the editor in Tiptonville. There was 
an editor in that town once who had been getting 
the worst of it in several engagements. Bill Wells 
was the champion of the town, but he had a big 
heart in him, like a brave man always has. One day 
when he met the editor with his eye in a sling he 
stopped him and says: "Say, seems to me you're 
gittin' too much the worst of it around this town. 
If it'll do you any good or keep these fellers off o' 
you, I'll agree to take a lickin from you and not 
charge you a cent." Then the editor thought about 
it a minute and then he said: 
"'Wouldn't it ruin your reputation, Bill?' 
" 'Oh, no,' said Bill, 'they all know you.' 

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. 

"They say all this is circumstantial evidence. 
That's the kind of evidence that is said by groat 
lawyers to be the strongest in the world. Gov. 
Johnson was once defending a defaulting county 

190 



SCHOOL FUND LOOT. 

treasurer who was away short in bis accounts. The 
money was missing, and he couldn't account for it, 
although he kept on insisting all the time that he 
was not guilty of robbery. 

" 'It's only circumstantial evidence against me,' he 
said. 'The money has disappeared while I'm in office, 
but nobody saw me take it.' 

" Tf somebody had seen you take it,' said the gov- 
ernor, 'we might impeach him, or strike out his tes- 
timony, or make him contradict himself on the stand.' 

" 'Then,' said the defaulter, 'it's only circumstan- 
tial, isn't it?' 

" 'Yes,' said the governor, 'It's only circumstantial 
in your case, but badly reduced circumstances in the 
case of your bondsmen.' 

"The governor gave a flashlight on what a skillful 
lawyer can do with direct testimony that he can't 
begin to do with circumstantial evidence. The men 
who are convicted on circumstantial evidence are 
the most surely convicted, in nine cases out of ten. 
And these same people who say that it is only cir- 
cumstantial evidence which points to a rake-off for 
somebody, wouldn't raise a voice against the value of 
circumstantial evidence if it was brought against 
some poor devil who is on trial for his life. We 
have hanged a hundred men in Missouri on circum- 
stantial evidence weaker than that which convicts 
somebody of having stood in on the deal with Kohn, 
Popper & Co. The evidence is a good deal stronger 
than what made Joe Padgett, of Randolph county, 
tell Riley Hall that he couldn't go back to Congress. 
Riley, you know, cottoned to the Populists and got 
himself elected on a fusion arrangement in his dis- 
trict. He was for silver up to the hub, and he used 
to scream about it at the Populist meetings. He was 
elected in 1892, but as early as 1894, the boys in both 

191 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

parties had begun to suspect him, and in the Demo- 
cratic state convention at Kansas City that year 
they challenged his poll of the Randolph county dele- 
gation, because they were afraid he was leaning 
toward Dave Francis and against Dick Bland. They 
had some circumstantial evidence, but it wasn't 
enough to convict, and so they sent him back to Con- 
gress for another term. In that term, though, he 
piled up the circumstantial evidence still higher by 
standing in with Cleveland and all his works, and 
when he came home he didn't ask for another nomina- 
tion. I don't believe Riley got any cash money for 
deserting the party, but they all thought he did, and 
Joe Padgett told him so. Riley denied it, but Joe 
up and said: 

" 'Well, Riley, if you done it all for nothin' you're 
too big a fool to send to Congress. When this dis- 
trict is sold out I want somebody to get something 
for it.' 

BAD TRADE. 

"That was the circumstantial evidence in the Hall 
case, and it hanged Riley higher than Haman, in poli- 
tics. And it wasn't near as strong as the evidence 
in this case. Here we were, with interest-bearing 
securities bringing in $100,000 a year from the outside 
and not costing us a cent. If we could have made 
anything by selling the bonds for what they were 
worth it would have been a good job. But «vhen we 
got rid of that much money every year that was 
coming to us without taxation, and when taxed our- 
selves to get it back again, we surely ought to have 
got the best prices going. Instead of that, we let 
the bonds go for $70,000 or $80,000 less than they were 
worth on the day they were sold, only a week after 
we had bought state bonds, according to Shannon 
and the Republic, by paying $20,000 more than they 



SCHOOL FUND LOOT. 

were worth a month earlier, when Ave could have got 
them as easy as not. That's stronger than the cir- 
cumstantial evidence that put Riley Hall out of poli- 
tics, and don't you forget it. It's a trade like the 
one Gabe Fannin made when he was a boy. Gabe 
was born up in Ralls county, and for a good many 
years he wasn't near as sharp as he got to be, and is 
now. It was the war that sharpened him up, for 
he was one of us, and I have heard him tell this 
story himself. He had been sent by his father to 
go with a cow that was to be sold to a neighbor, 
but on which no price had been set. The old man 
gave Gabe the top price and the bottom price, and the 
bottom price was $20. When the neighbor asked 
the price, Gabe said, 'Dad says he won't take less 
than $20.' i 

" 'All right,' said the farmer; 'driver her in.' 

"I met Gabe the other day, and, said he: 'At the 
time I done that you could have made me believe 
that selling them government bonds, and then tax- 
ing ourselves to raise the interest on them, was a good 
thing, but you couldn't do it now.' 

" 'I reckon,' said I, 'that nowadays you don't give 
your bottom figures first, either.' 

" 'Not when I'm selling,' said Gabe, ^but when I'm 
buying I do just like that New York fellow who sent 
in his bid for the bonds to the fund commissioners, in 
the hands of Shannon. That was his bottom price, 
and they never asked him for a higher one, although 
he was away below the market.' 

SANDY HOOKER'S BREAK. 
"But the trade in the bonds was more like the one 
Sandy Hooker made with Jim Marvin, up in Moni- 
teau. Sandy had a threshing machine which was 
bringing him in good money, but he began to get 

193 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

gay and wanted a horse and buggy to take his girl 
out in. Jim Marvin had what he wanted, and of- 
fered to trade hiin. It was the best trade Jim ever 
made, and he dates the beginning of his fortune from 
that day. But Sandy's troubles were not long in 
coming, and as soon as they commenced a-coming 
they kept a-coming fast. He got to going with a girl 
whose father dropped around one night with a shot- 
gun and invited him out to marry her. They dated 
the license back a few months, to get a good start, 
and went to housekeeping. But Sandy had to trade 
his rig for a plow and a horse that couldn't pull it 
across a ten-acre field oftener than a dozen times a 
day. He saw he had got the worst of it, and vamoosed 
the ranch, but his wife came after him with a suit 
for a separate maintenance, and the court allowed it to 
her, and Sandy's a-paying it yet. His threshing ma- 
chine's gone, his horse and buggy's gone, and all he's 
got is the certificate of indebtedness in his sinking 
fund, which the order of the court makes sacred and 
inviolate, non-negotiable and non-transferable, and 
which there is no danger of anybody in the world 
trying to steal from him. Sandy knows something 
about conversions in property. He is in the certifi- 
cate stage right now, and is going to vote for the 
constitutional amendment in favor of repudiating 
all certificates now outstanding." 



1!U 



THE SCHOOL FUND 



THE "OLD POLITICIAN" PROVES HOW THE 
TAIL WENT WITH THE HIDE. 



Bonds Sold Seven Per Cent Below the Market 
Price, Including' Interest. 



Record as to the Accrued Interest on the Bonds— Books 
at Jefferson City and New York. 



[From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.] 
JEFFERSON CITY, MO., November 30.— "I don't 
expect," said the Old Politician, "that an experted ma- 
chine and its suporters will agree with me. What I 
do think, though, is that they ought to agree with 
one another, and that each and every one of them 
ought to agree with himself. But they don't do it. 
The Republic called me a liar because I was figuring 
that the state didn't get 14 y : , per cent premium on the 
amount of money it turned over to Kohn & Co. on 
them government bonds, but when I got them around 
to my basis of figuring that the tail w^ent along with 
the hide, and that the New Yorkers got the accrued 
interest, as well as the principal, the Republic figures 
it out that the premium would be 11.25 on the whole 
transaction. The Republic seems to feel tow T ard me 
like Deacon Groves, w r ho used to live in Knox county, 
felt toward a backsliding member of the congregation, 
whose alleged transgressions had been brought up 
before the deacons. 'That man,' said Deacon Groves, 
'ought to be kicked by a jackass, and I'd like to be 
the one to do it.' 

195 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

"TheRepublic has kicked at me every day this week, 
but, as I was saying, if it could only agree with itself 
it wouldn't remind me so muck of Deacon Groves. I 
insist that ll 1 ^ per cent premium isn't 14y 2 per cent 
by a long shot, when you let the tail go with the 
hide, and that's what I was doing, in my calculations 
all of the time. And that's what I'm doing yet, al- 
though the Republic insists that I am an old fraud, 
.and that the entire accrued interest, amounting to 
over $40,000, was paid to the school fund by Kohn & 
Co., and that the amount was credited to them in the 
state's books. The Republic isn't what you might 
call an expert, but it seems that, on this point, it 
is more expert than them experts we hired, for they 
couldn't find any such a credit. They couldn't, find 
any of the figures in the books, and in their report 
they say (page 67), that 'there is no formal account 
on the general books of the state showing the trans- 
actions had with this firm.' Now, I don't want to 
call the Republic a liar. That is not my style of de- 
bate. What I am going to do about this is to prove 
that it is the experts who have told the truth, and 
then the Republic will not be under the necessity of 
confessing that it has lied, for I will be as easy on 
it as Dr. Pope Yeaman was on one of the brethren 
years ago when there was a church trial, in which one 
of the parties was shown to have broken the com- 
mandment against bearing false witness into a thou- 
sand pieces. It was proved so pat and clear that there 
was no doubt about it. and it was expected that the 
sinner would surely be called on to humiliate himself 
before God and men by making a public confession. 
But Pope Yeaman's great soul was too white for such 
torture, and he said, after the congregation broke up: 
'I think that the case is so clearly proved that we need 

qo further testimony from brother — ' 
L96 



THE SCHOOL FUND. 

" 'But how about the Lord?' asked one of the anx- 
ious brethren. 

" T think,' said Dr. Yeainan, 'that if the Lord is not 
satisfied with the punishment already infiicted, he 
will find a way to inflict more.' 

"And after I prove the Republic out of line with all 
the other testimony in this case, they needn't confess 
to me, or to the people. Take it to the Lord in 
prayer. 

REMARKABLE RECORD. 

"Now, the experts say (page 67) that there is nothing 
in the books of the state showing any of the transac- 
tions of the state with Kohn & Co. Not a figure, or 
a line, or the dotting of an i or the crossing of a t, 
to indicate what was passing in the deal. They 
don't deny the deal, though, for it is reported in 
total figures in the auditor's books, showing the 
amount of bonds sold and what they were sold for. 
but nary a scratch of a pen indicating the payment 
of a cent by them for the then accrued interest on 
the bonds, amounting to a semi-annual coupon. I 
have already asked the Republic to tell where, in the 
books, or in what books, it finds a credit of more 
than $40,000 showing that Kohn & Co. paid the ac- 
crued interest on the bonds, and it assures me, in 
reply, that I am an old liar and an old fraud, and 
a defamer who is gangrened with malice. But 
where's the page? That's what I want to know. 
And that's what the experts want to know, too, and 
what they couldn't find. In order to get any kind 
of trace of this deal they had to go to New York 
and consult the books of the National Bank of Com- 
merce, which was the fiscal agent of the state at 
that time, and also such of the books of Kohn & Co. 
as they could get hold of, as the firm has now gone 

197 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

out of existence. And they didn't find, in any of 
them books, any record of more than $40,000 in ac- 
crued interest paid to this state by Kohn & Co., 
or Kohn, Popper & Co., along with the face and pre- 
mium of the government bonds they bought. Not 
much ! 

"On page 41 of the statistical exhibits made by 
the experts you will find what they got out of the 
books of Kohn, Popper & Co. and the National Bank 
of Commerce. It is very enlightening on this point 
about the interest on the bonds. The face and pre- 
mium of the bonds are set out in two separate items, 
and then, included in this transaction of the bonds, 
comes this entry: 'Interest, $1750.' And that is the 
only sum of interest referred to, and it's as plain as 
shooting that it was the only interest that passed 
in the whole deal. If the Republic can cite the book 
the page and the number, where any other interest 
is entered, it will accommodate a good many people 
who want to know the truth about this deal and who 
don't think that calling me a liar settles anything. 
The experts say that there is no entry of the deal in 
the state books, and in the figures they give from 
Kohn & Co.'s books they show that there's no such 
entry there. Now where is it? Of course, I know, 
Republic, that in the transfer of negotiable paper the 
seller is entitled to that part of the interest already 
accrued, and that's what makes me so all-fired mad 
about this thing, to think that we Missourians, who 
boast so much that we have to be shown, were taken 
in and done up so completely by a New York house. 
that we not only let our bonds go at less than the 
market price, but didn't get what always goes in 
such deals, the interest on the bonds up to the date 
of the transfer. 



198 



THE SCHOOL FUND. 

PRICES AND INVESTMENT. 

"I tell you, if we could have sold them boiuls at 
the highest premium going that year it would have 
beeu a bad investment. They went as high as 125, 
and the lowest they went in New York that year, 
according to the bank reports, was 118. Ours went 
at 11.25, according to the Republic, if we include the 
interest, and there isn't a scratch of a pen in any 
ledger account or any auditor's report to show that 
we didn't include it. But if we had sold at 118 we 
would still have been losers, for the reason that a 
man would be a loser if he should trade off a good, 
strong, working horse for an old one that he would 
have to feed. That's it exactly, and you can't figure 
it out any other way. In them government bonds 
we had a source of revenue that didn't tax us. It 
came out of the people of all the states, and came 
into our treasury, $100,000 a year, just like finding it. 
But if we had sold at 118 — and we could have done 
it without any trouble — it wouldn't have paid us to 
sell at that figure if we were going to take the money 
and invest it in state bonds and put them in the school 
fund and collect the interest by an anuual tax on the 
people of Missouri. No, sir; it wouldn't have paid 
us even at that, for we would just have been throw- 
ing away a hundred thousand. dollars a year we were 
getting from Washington, and turning around to tax 
the people of Missouri to get it back again. That's 
what we did, though. 

"Some- man writes to me, through the Globe-Demo- 
crat office, and wants to know why I didn't roar at 
the time this was done. He doesn't sign his name, 
and is what the Republic would call 'anonymous,' 
but that cuts no ice with me, for his question is a 
fair one, and I will give it a fair answer. None of 

199 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

us knew what was being hatched until the whole 
thing was done. They were afraid to lay it before 
the legislature, because they knew if they did it 
would raise a howl that would frighten the legisla- 
ture from ever agreeing to it. This entire thing was 
done under cover, and that's the worst feature 
about it all. On the 4th of November, 1900, in the 
St. Louis Republic of that date, Richard D. Shannon, 
of Warrensburg, who was the state superintendent 
of education at the time the sale was made, an- 
swering the first letter I wrote to the Globe-Demo- 
crat about this bond cod version, says that the mat- 
ter was never thought of or discussed by himself. 
or the fund commissioners, until a few weeks before 
the sale was made, Shannon is not specific as to 
dates, but he thinks it was in the latter part of Oc- 
tober he was notified that one of the series of bonds 
held by the school fund were called for redemption, 
and he says he had private information that another 
series would be called before long. Who it was that 
gave him the tip, he doesn't say, or what series of 
bonds that was which had been called, he doesn't 
say. The fact is, that throughout the whole of the 
discussion over this matter there has never been a 
man jack of them all to step forward with a full, 
clear, connected and intelligent account of the deal, 
giving the facts and the figures, the dates, the files 
of the books, the numbers of all the bonds, and the 
series to which they belonged. They just lay back 
and say that every man who asks for the facts is 
defaming the state. 

BUILT AN INTEREST FUND. 

"One series of the bonds was called for redemption. 
Shannon says. Well, the others were likely to run 
for several years after that, for the government was 

200 



THE SCHOOL FUND. 

just then beginning to accumulate gold in the treas- 
ury in preparation for the operation of the Sherman 
resumplion act, which had just become a law. But 
supposing that all of them had been called, what 
then? -What was the proper thing to do? Why, it 
was to sell at the market price, which was apt to 
be somewhere about 120, but if it was only 118, 
which, according to the bank reports, was the lowest 
figure for 6 per cent 5-20s in the New York market 
that year, our bonds would have brought $1,972,488. 
Do you think I would have invested that in state 
bonds and collected a tax off the people of this state 
to raise an interest fund in place of the one destroyed 
by the sale? Never in the world. Look at the United 
States Statutes (16272) and read the refunding nets 
adopted July 14, 1870. There you will find that all 
of these bonds could have been exchanged for the 
5-20s which had been called in, par for par, or the 
government would sell the new 5s to purchasers at 
not less than par. Now consult the treasury reports, 
and you will find that the entire issue went at par. 
Well, now, they had not less than ten years to run. 
Why, any man who could run a threshing machine 
would see that the thing to do was to sell, if he was 
going to sell the bonds at all, and reinvest in the new 
issue. And $1,972,488, at 5 per cent, would bring into 
the Missouri school fund $98,624.40 in interest every 
year, every red penny of which would come out of 
the United States treasury. And they could have got 
it right along for a good deal more than ten years, 
and then they could have sold out again and con- 
verted the proceeds into 4 per cents and have them 
yet. 

"But what did they do? Well, we all know now, 
but, as I was saying, none of us knew then, and it 
was to keep us from knowing that somebody kept the 
whole of the proceeding out of the legislature. I 

201 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

don't know who was responsible for that, but what 
we all know was that Gov. Hardin was not aware 
that anything was going on in that way when the 
legislature met in 1875, and it was not until 1877 that 
he made a report of the transaction, after everything 
in the way of a government bond we had was gone. 
We bought some more later on. But that's another 
story. 

HOW IT WAS DONE. 

"Before I get through with this one, I want to tell 
how Shannon described the w T ay this sale was made, 
in the Republic of November 4, 1900. 'At that time,' 
he says, 'the state did not contemplate the conversion 
of the securities from United States to state bonds. 
Nothing had occurred to suggest the necessity for the 
change.' And yet, under the refunding acts of 1870, 
they knew that the bonds would be called in the 
course of time. It was, perhaps, their intention to 
refund in the new 5 per cent, and if so, they ought 
to have stuck to it. But all of a sudden, it appears 
like they got a tip that the devil was to pay. A Mr. 
Dewitt C. Stone, who had formerly been a partner 
of Treasurer Salmon in a banking business, was act- 
ing as the 'confidential agent' of Shannon to keep 
Kohn & Co. from skinning us. Kohn & Co. were 
then in Jefferson City buying up state bonds at less 
than par, for the purpose of selling them back to us, 
in less than a month, at more than par. It was 
while this deal was going on and the fund commis- 
sioners were selling $1000 bonds to Kohn & Co. at 
$988 apiece, which the state bought back in a few 
weeks at more than $1000 apiece, that Shannon was 
notified that the government was after our bonds. 
He got notice of one of the scries, and got a tip 
about another. Who gave him the tip he doesn't say, 
but anyhow he go1 sc.-uvd up, because, says he, 'when 

202 



THE SCHOOL FUND. 

a bond was called for redemption it at once fell to 
par, all premium ceasing.' 

"Now, will somebody tell me why, if the bonds, 
being called in, bad lost all their premium, and fell to 
par, Kohn & Co. paid even as much as $11.25 premium 
on the lot? Will somebody tell me that? If they 
were worth only par, what made Kchn & Co. pay 
more than they were worth? Mr. Shannon says he 
had to watch them in the deal on the state bonds 
to keep them from bulling the prices when he started 
in to buy their bonds. But he failed. For the bonds 
they had bought at $988 apiece they sold back to him 
for $1003.75 apiece. They were business men who 
were consulting their own interests and not those of 
this state, and when it came to buying the govern- 
ment bonds you can gamble all the way from here to 
the Yukon and back that if the bonds had fallen to 
par they ' wouldn't have given $11.25 for them, al- 
though $11.25. was nearly 7 per cent below the mar- 
ket price for that class of bonds that year, according 
to the bank reports. 

INTERESTING DEAL. 
"But Shannon's description of the deal is one of 
the most interesting things I ever read. Mr. Popper, 
the member of the firm from New York, who was in 
Jefferson City running the deal for his house, was 
not taken into the fund commissioner's office. 'I 
gave Mr. Popper a seat in my office,' says Shannon, 
'and took his bid into the board. This bid was care- 
fully considered and unanimously accepted.' But 
Shannon, it seems, wanted to get a little more, and 
so he told Mr. Popper that the board insisted on hav- 
ing $25,000 more, which Mr. Popper refused to give, 
but offered $10,000 more, and this was accepted. The 
entire transaction, it seems to me, was strange, pe- 
culiar and mysterious and it is made more so by the 

203 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

fact that nowhere does Mr. Shannon mention the 
figure at which the bonds were sold. 'This bond 
bid,' he says 'was carefully considered and unani- 
mously accepted.' What bid? What were the figures 
of the bid? 'Mr. Popper,' he says in another place, 
'at once emphatically declined to accept my offer.' 
What offer? What was the size of the offer? 'Mr. 
Popper finally agreed to add $10,000 to the sum.' To 
what sum? What was Mr. Popper's first bid and 
what his second? Why can not these people, in deal- 
ing with an important matter like this, be specific 
and not vague? But all of them who talk about it 
always withhold some point of fact, the understand- 
ing of which is necessary to an intelligent judgment. 
And if Mr. Popper agreed then and there to pay the 
accrued interest on the bonds, why doesn't Mr. Shan- 
non say so? He didn't offer to pay it. He never did 
pay it. 

"Jim Seibert has written to Mr. Popper to come 
out here and help straighten this thing out. Mr. Pop- 
per is on hand, but he has nothing to straighten. I 
guess if I had been in his place I would have played 
it the way he did, but if I had been a sworn officer 
of Missouri, intrusted by the people with looking 
after their interests, he would have known there was 
somebody in Missouri who had to be shown before he 
got away with all he took with him. You can call 
it a mistake, and say that men like Gov. Hardin 
could never have been corrupted. You can't get me 
to fighting tombstones, but I stick to it that it was 
a bad day's work for Missouri when such a groat 
interest-bearing fund, free of taxation, as we had in 
them government bonds, was sold out, and the same 
amount of money raised for the school fund by tax- 
ing the people to get it. Missouri is the only state 
in the world that ever did that. And she is the only 
state that has ever issued certificates of indebtedness 

201 



THE SCHOOL FUND. 

iii place of cash money taken out of her school fund. 
Other states have issued certificates of indebtedness 
in place of cash money taken out of her school funds, 
but they have always been free gifts, added to the 
school funds already on hand. But here, in 1883, they 
made the school fund a regular looting ground by 
declaring by statute that any moneys which got in 
there 'from any source whatever' should be liable 
to be taken out and put into the sinking fund. 

THE BIG "GRAFT." 
"They have been keeping that up ever since. The 
biggest graft they have got out of it was from the 
money received from the United States government 
in 1891, and which was applied to the seminary funds. 
I think there is something of a story in that, but it 
takes time to go through the figures of experts whose 
chief work is to deceive. The $201,000 taken out of 
the revenue fund and put into the school fund in 
1885, and taken out of the school fund into the sink- 
ing fund the same year, is not found figuring in any 
of the bonded debt reductions made either in 1885 
or 1886. I charged this last week, and you don't 
find any of them coming back at me about it like 
they all would if I should say twice two is three. Oh. 
they are an amusing lot, and they give their hand 
away after every deal, so that I can tell about what 
they're holding, and I'll tell you right now, my boy, 
there isn't an ace of clubs in the whole lot of them. 
They haven't got the cards, and if they had the cards 
they wouldn't have the nerve to play them. For 
they're up against it, good and hard. Things are 
a-keeping on a-happening to them like they did to 
Tom Blakeley the day the mule kicked him. He fell 
off a house, and into a well, and it was just after 
getting out of that he was kicked by the mule. 
Then he said it wasn't his lucky day, and went home 

205 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

and went to bod without nerve enough left to play 
a full hand against a bobtail. And things are keep- 
in' on a-happenin' to these folks in such a way that 
their nerve is gone for anything better than calling 
a man a liar, which is mighty little, between you and 
me. Seibert is surely losing his nerve when he sends 
to New York for Popper, to bring him out here as a 
witness. Popper is the same kind of witness, if he 
goes on the stand, that Sol. Mason was up in Gentry 
county. He had been subpoenaed for the defense, 
and after the direct examination the state's attorney . 
began to cross-examine him. 

" 'Now, look here,' said Sol, 'it's no use to go to 
try to tangle me up, for I'm a man that stands by my 
friends.' 

"I guess that's the way Mr. Topper feels about it, 
for he certainly owes a good deal of his fortunes to 
the Democrats who have been running this state. He 
ran another million dollar bond deal for them along 
in the eighties, which, I think, is another rat hole 
that will bear looking into as soon as I get a little 
time. But what I was talking about just now \v;is 
the troubles of the Seibert ring. 

THE CARDWELL CASE. 

This Cardwell row is one with feathers on i;, and 
spikes in its teeth. They're doing their best no/w to 
call it off. When I was in the telephone exchange 
yesterday there was a fearful racket over the wire 
and it sounded to me as though it might be Bill 
Phelps, in St. Louis, telling Walsh, in Kansas City, to 
call the whole thing off. I'll bet a horse that Phelps 
was after Walsh a dozen times yesterday. I thought 
so last night, and when I picked up the paper this; 
morning ami saw that Lon Stephens had got to St. 
Louis, I'd 'a' hot a span on it. And then I know 

206 



THE SCHOOL FUND. 

they've been bringing a pressure to bear on Judge 
Cochran and other men in the railway line to put a 
spoke in Bill's wheel. There is something like a 
'community of interest' now between the Missouri 
Pacific and the Burlington, and then, you know, 
neither Stephens nor Crow would like to have that 
thing pushed too far. And that's just why Sammy 
Cook let out a few lines more in his testimony than 
anybody was expecting him to. He didn't tell all of 
the truth by a sight, but he told enough to scare up 
some people who were throwing stones because they 
had forgotten they live in glass houses. Oh, they're 
all tarred with the same stick. They put me in mind 
of them fellers that were at the court of Henry III., 
of France. In one of that crazy monarch's religious 
spasms he issued an order that all of his courtiers 
should flog themselves for their sins. There was a 
great deal of the noise of flaggelation around the 
palace, but very little of the real thing, and then 
Henry gave orders that, in the courtyard, they should 
flog one another. He superintended the thing him- 
self, and it turned out well, because they all had their 
secret grudges, and every feller took a swipe at those 
he didn't like, until it had gone all around a good 
many times before Henry cried: 'Hold, my children, 
I don't think a sinner among you has escaped, and 
justice has been done.' Well, I don't know how long 
it will be until they get clear around in this game. 
They have only commenced now, and there are some, 
who haven't got a whack yet, that will come in for 
several. They can keep it going as long as they 
please, and I don't care how often they get around, 
they'll never stop if they wait for me to stop them. 

"All the same, there's a mighty big effort being 
made to stop them right now. The wires were hot all 
day yesterday, and they're still hot to-night. This 

207 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

man Walsh is a stubborn fellow, and he thinks he 
has a grievance, and I guess he has. Sam Cook threw 
his crowd down in the last ditch at Kansas City last 
year, after Sam had played them to get himself 
elected again as chairman instead of Seibert. He 
couldn't play openly, and so he encouraged the Walsh 
ment to fight, thinking to gain by it himself. He 
threw them down when he found he had to, and they 
have, had it in for him and Seibert ever since. 

"And I don't think they can stop them. But what 
if they could? The cat's out of the bag now. To 
gag the thing now, after as much has got out as has, 
can but add to public suspicion and distrust. No 
gentlemen, the cards are running that way, and 
changing the deal and getting out new hands would 
attract attention like what happened the night Mrs. 
Murphy reached inside her clothes for a card she 
had put there for an emergency. 

" 'Mrs. Murphy, mum,' said Mr. McFinnegan, 
'we know it's all right, mum, but scratchin' wid 
kyarcls is forninst the rules. It not only gims the 
kyards, but it delays the game.' " 



208 



BOIDS AND CERTIFICATES. 



"THE OLD POLITICIAN" GETS A CLEW AS TO 
WHO GOT THE $50,000 INTEREST. 



The Difference Between Market Prices and What 
the U. S. Bonds Were Sold For. 



Figures Which Show Where the Interest Went— Real Pre- 
mium and the Apparent One— Loss to the State. 



[Prom the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.] 
JEFFERSON CITY, MO., November 23.— "When I 
was in Paris last summer," said the Old Politician, "I 
noticed a lot of fellows drinking green and yellow 
chartreuse. A few of them took it yellow and a few 
of them took it green, and now and then you would 
run across a fellow who drank it in both colors. It 
is a tradition of the boulevards there that a man's 
mental temperament takes on the color of the char- 
treuse that he drinks. If it's green, he's green. If 
it's yellow, so's he. This interested me so much that 
I asked a garcon in a cafe if a man would be yellow 
and green, too, if he took both. 'Ooee, muncher,' said 
he, which means, in United States, 'yes, sir.' 

"Well, sir, I've found a man who drinks both colors. 
He's on the Republic, and he's all the time saying 
that I am an anonymous contributor. Now, I'm no 
more of an anonymous contributor than any other 
impersonal contributor to a newspaper, and the editor 
of the Globe-Democrat knows that along with the 
first of my letters went the assurance that if any 
question arose, I asked no exemptions and did not 
seek to conceal my identity, or propose to allow any 

209 
14 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

roan to shield ine from my just responsibilities. So 
much for the yellow tinge in the Republic, which I 
perhaps have no right to allude to here, seeing it is 
personal to myself. But the color of the green char- 
treuse is a matter of public interest, and in my opin- 
ion green is the predominating tinge, although the 
yellow comes out strong. 

"When you're fishing for big fish it's mighty little 
consolation to you to get a long string of minnows. 
As I was saying last week, I put out some calcula- 
tions on the premium paid for them government 
bonds sold in 1875, in which there were palpable 
errors in computation. I was after ex-Treasurer Sal- 
mon, but, although he came back at me, he only smelt 
at the bait on that hook and didn't bite. But the 
Democratic press of Missouri, from the Republic 
down, raised a howl, just like they all raised when 
they 'said that Stephens' store, which I had located 
'on the other side of the river,' was not on the river 
at all. They've been after me, and are after me yet, 
like Jim Cockrell's pack of hounds were after the. 
fox up in Lafayette county. They tell it up there 
that that pack of hounds went nearly all over half of 
the county one day. People who were going along 
the roads could hear them ofi; in the fields, and every 
now and then the whole pack, followed by Jim and 
'Lias Marmaduke, would break across the road. 
Along about dark, they came into Lexington, and 
they hadn't seen the fox since morning. Somebody 
poked fun at Jim about it, but he only said, 'My 
dogs are trained to trail foxes that run crooked and 
double on their tracks, but this one runs straight 
ahead.' 

WIDE-MOUTHED SUCKERS. 

"As I was saying, I caught a long string of min- 
nows. They're all suckers, but the Republic is the 

210 



BONDS AND CERTIFICATES. 

only wide-mouthed sucker on the line, and if you're 
ever fished much you know that the wide-mouthed 
sucker takes more of the hook than any other kind. 
That's what the Republic's done. I said that the 
bonds went at less than 12 per cent premium, and 
they did, if the semi-annual interest of $50,148, then 
due, went along with them, and that's just what I 
wanted to get some of them to admit. I wanted to 
land Maj. Salmon on that, but he ain't a wide- 
mouthed sucker, and I didn't catch him, although he 
nibbled strong at my bait. But the Republic takes it 
all in beautifully. It says: 'Missourians will have 
to study a new arithmetic before they believe that 
$242,266, the premium actually received, or the differ- 
ence between $1,913,866 and $1,671,600 is less than 12 
per cent of the principal, or $1,671,600. According 
to the rules generally accepted in banks and other 
counting rooms, $242,266 is 14.49 per cent of $1,671,600.' 
"Sure. But is it 14.49 per cent of $1,721,748, which 
is what the principal of the bonds becomes when you 
add the $50,148 in interest which was due on the 
bonds at the time they were transferred to Kohn & 
Co., of New York? Now, keep your eye on the rat 
hole, for he's going to come out in a minute. The 
question I have raised as to what became of that 
interest, and who got it, has been troubling them 
mightily, and well it may, for, if they can't account 
for that interest, they stand discredited before the 
state as a party utterly unworthy of trust and en- 
tirely unfitted for any responsibility. They are hear- 
ing from this in every section of Missouri, because 
it's a practical, common-sense, everyday question, that 
all men can understand, and it's got to be answered. 
They're trying to answer it, and in making the at- 
tempt the Republic has swallowed hook, line, bob 
and sinker back of the bait that Maj. Salmon only 

211 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

smelt at. Hold in mind that the Republic, in the 
words I have just quoted, admits that the principal 
of the bonds was $1,671,600. That's right, and that's 
what it said Monday, November 18. 

TAIL GOES WITH HIDE. 

Friday, November 22, it said: "The anonymous Old 
Politician, who is vouched for by the Globe-Democrat, 
simply falsified the records when he stated that the 
interest due on the United States bonds at the time 
of their sale was not accounted for to the state. The 
books show not only that the interest was accounted 
for, but that the state in fact realized a premium on 
the interest." If a premium was paid on the interest, 
then the interest was not transferred to the state from 
the government, as it should have been, for the gov- 
ernment never pays a premium on the interest it pays 
out on its bonds. If a premium was received, then 
that is evidence that the interest went along with 
the bonds to Kobn & Co., of New York. It was a 
mighty long tail to go with the hide, but the Republic 
says it did go. Well, then, just add up that $50,148 
interest to the $1,671,600 which the Republic says 
was the principal of the bonds, and what have you 
got ?-r$l ,721,748. Now the Republic said that $1,- 
913,866 was the price paid by Kohn & Co. to the state, 
and that's what the auditor says, too, in his official 
report for 1885-1886. What's the difference between 
$1,721,748 and $1,913,866 ?— $192,118. That's right. 
And what per cent is that of the $1,721,748 Kohn & 
Co. ought to have paid for the bonds and the coupons 
at par? Is it 14% per cent? Not by a long shot. Is 
it less than 12 per cent? Yes. Is it less than 11? 
Yes. Less than 10? Just a fraction less — 9.9 would 
hit it off about right. 

There you are. The Republic says we sold our 
government bonds, and the interest accrued upon 

212 



BONDS AND CERTIFICATES. 

them at the time of sale, at 9.9. That's a good deal 
lower than I put it. And it's a darned sight lower 
than government bonds were being sold for at that 
time. Now consult the reports of E. B. Elliott, pre- 
pared for the United States treasury, setting out the 
average premiums on government bonds from the 
time of the suspension of specie payments until their 
resumption in 1879. These reports cover the average 
values of gold in paper currency in the New York 
market and, of course, the average premium on all 
kinds of government securities redeemable in gold, 
as our bonds were. What was the average premium 
on all classes of United States bonds then, in Decem- 
ber, 1875? Elliott says it was 13.9 — 2 per cent above 
the price at which Kohn & Co. had cleaned us out of 
our bonds and our interest account, then due. Say, 
it's strange we should fall so far below the average 
level of the market, particularly when we were throw- 
ing in $50,000 of interest, which you will hardly ever 
find done once in a century, when the interest is 
already or nearly accrued, and the price paid on the 
principal is less than the market price. And don't 
forget that when Kohn & Co. drew that $50,000 of 
interest from the government treasury they made 
$7000 more clear profit on the deal, by turning the 
gold the treasury had paid th£m into greenbacks, 
even if they only got in at the bottom of the market 
that month. 

AWAY BELOW THE MARKET. 
So far I have only given you the averages on all 
kinds of government bonds at that time. The Re- 
public has proved me to have been right in my as- 
sertion that our securities went at less than 112, if 
the tail went with the hide. I am sorry I can't re- 
turn the compliment and show that the Republic is 
right in any of its calculations, but I follow the 

213 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

records, and I don't drink chartreuse, green or yellow. 
And now I'm going to follow the records some more. 
I have shown that, if the Republic tells the truth, 
our bonds went away below the level of the market 
for all classes of bonds. But they were 6 per cent 
5-20 bonds, remember, and to find out just exactly 
how far the Republic says we were below the market 
price for that class of securities we will look up the 
bank reports on that special issue. The bank reports 
set out the highest and lowest prices paid for any 
class of securities for a long series of years. I will 
take the report of the Maverick National bank, of 
Boston, because that bank has always been one of 
the largest dealers in government securities, and be- 
cause its reports as to prices, and also as to oppor- 
tunities for investment, are credited everywhere. And 
what do I find there? Why, that the lowest New 
York market price for all of the 5-20 bonds that was 
touched during the year of 1875 was 1*18. Our bonds, 
you see, according to the story told by the superin- 
tendent of education at the time they were sold, 
were not sold in New York, but in Jefferson City, but 
I'll be hanged if I can see why they ought to go 
any cheaper here than anywhere else, or why we 
should be nearly 10 per cent below the New York 
market for something that is just as valuable in one 
of the United States as it is in another. 

Now, you see that, if the Republic is telling the 
truth, we were worse skinned than I said at first. I 
didn't want to be too hard on them, but the Republic 
puts them in the hole and nails them to the cross. 
Having admitted that Kohn & Co. got the interest, 
it had done the worst it could do, and ought to have 
stopped, but both the green and yellow were at work 
that day, it seems, and after the green had made the 
damaging admissions, the yellow stepped in and fab- 
ricated stories as to their official confirmation. There's 

214 



BONDS AND CERTIFICATES. 

no doubt that the Wall street house got the interest, 
as well as the bonds. The Republic says the interest 
was included in the amount they paid the state, and 
it adds that the auditor's report will show it. Where? 
Quote your volume and page, as I am going to do now. 
In the auditor's report for 1885-1886, where this sale 
of bonds is gone into extensively, as a part of an 
exhaustive statement of state finances, the like of 
which we have never had since, there is nothing said, 
in that part of the report dealing with the school 
fund, about the interest being paid to the state. The 
auditor there figures out the premium paid on the 
principal of the bonds, and makes it out to be 14y 2 
per cent, because he does not include the interest on 
the deal. If the Republic means that the interest 
was paid to the state out of the United States treas- 
ury, why does it not say so? It is trying to run an- 
other Bourbon bunko game on the people of this 
state, but I shall make it my business to look up 
the matter as it stands in the books of the treasury 
at Washington, where neither moth nor rust doth 
corrupt, and where experts never break through and 
deal. Whether it is the green or the yellow that is 
getting the upper hand in the Republic, in what it 
has to say about me to-day, I don't know. I guess 
it's a little of both, particularly in the evasion it at- 
tempts as to when and where this interest was paid. 
"The books do sk<5w," says the Republic, "the amount 
of interest collected on these bonds, sold by the agent 
of the state board of education. The exact interest 
collected up to date of the transfer, in the latter part 
of November, 1875, was $40,898, which was properly 
placed to the credit of the state's school moneys for 
the education of the children." 

FRAUD AND DECEPTION. 
"Now, look here; you can see how far fraud and 
deception have been carried by these people in the 

215 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

government of Missouri when they put out a claim 
like that. The interest was paid on these bonds twice 
a year, once in June and once in December. The 
bonds were transferred December 24. If they were 
transferred in November, how in the devil did they 
get the government to pay an interest ahead of date? 
I don't think they did. Do you? Not on your life, 
my boy, and the Republic knows it, for just mark 
what it says about the interest: 'The exact interest 
collected up to the date of the transfer in the latter 
part of November, 1875, was $40,898.' 'Up to the 
date of the transfer,' mind you. How much was col- 
lected on the date of the transfer? That's what we 
want to know. Of course, more than $40,000 had been 
collected as interest on the bonds 'up to the date of 
the transfer.' Fifty thousand dollars had been col- 
lected just the June before, but how much was col- 
lected on the day the bonds passed? That's the point, 
and you bet your life the people see it, for they're 
catching on to the fact that this is the only state 
where an endowment of government bonds in a school 
fund was ever sold out, lock, stock and barrel, prin- 
cipal and interest, hide and tail, and the money that 
had been coming into the state from the outside as 
so much clear gain afterwards taken out of the peo- 
ple in taxes. And, by the way, that reminds me of a 
fellow in the Republic who says he has fired a 13-inch 
shell at me in that paper. I don't very well see how 
a 13-inch shell can be fired out of that gun, but as 
long as he thinks it's as big as that I won't argue 
the point. What he says is that it is better for the 
people of this state to have taxed themselves for 
twentj'-six years to raise less than half a million dol- 
lars more than they could have got out of the gov- 
ernment for nothing in the same time. That's his 
13-inch shell, and I still think that as little as half a 
million dollars gained for the school fund in twenty- 

216 



BONDS AND CERTIFICATES. 

six years by trading credit for debt, and taxing your- 
self to pay the debt, don't pay the people who have 
the debt to pay. They can't even show me that the 
school fund was benefited by throwing away from 
$75,000 to $100,000 a year and then going to work to 
tax ourselves to get it back. And when you can't 
show that the schools are benefited by it the bottom 
drops out of the whole thing, and I think I've shown 
that in showing that taxing ourselves for twenty-six 
years to raise the money that we used to get for 
nothing don't pay a little bit when the school fund 
gets an increase of only $412,000 in all that time. 
The game ain't worth the candle, and it's because the 
people are dead onto that fact and are noticing that 
the men who managed the state's finances in that 
way are not managing their own on the same plan 
that this here school fund question is a hot one, and 
is going to keep on being hot, and is going to get 
hotter and hotter until it will be as hot as the fire at 
the barbecue that was run by Capt Lamothe down 
in St. Charles county. The captain had a fine pecan 
grove on his place and it was a splendid place for 
barbecues, and the captain used jto give one once in 
awhile, particularly when he was interested in the 
success of any local candidate for office. On one 
occasion, when John McDearmon was up and the 
captain was supporting him, there was a barbecue 
there and the captain was superintending the ar- 
rangements. Tsn't the fire hot enough yet, captain?' 
some of them asked, who could feel the heat coming 
up through the top layer of charcoal like a breath of 
Gehenna. 

"It's hot enough for beef," said the captain," "but 
it will take ten degrees more for a hog." 

What I mean is that we're going to have hog heat 
in this school fund fight before we're through with 

• 217 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

it, no matter how the people with their noses and all 
their four feet in the trough squeal and grunt about 

it. 

THE SCHOOL CERTIFICATES. 

I've been looking a little over this here expert re- 
port that they've got out in a salmon-covered back 
and called "Missouri Finances." I haven't gone deep 
into it yet, but I expect to, when I get time. But 
I'd like to ask Allen a question, and I'm only asking 
for information because I don't pretend to be an ex- 
pert and what I work out of "Missouri Finances" 
is worked out by the same kind of sense that helps 
a man to make a living and a little more; the same 
kind of sense you find all over Missouri. My ques- 
tion is: Why do you allow the experts to put on the 
credit side that $900,000 certificate of indebtedness, 
which was issued in 1872 to cover the money due 
the school fund out of the proceeds of the sale of 
stock of the Bank of Missouri in the list of redemp- 
tions in the period between 1873 and 1900? Is it 
redeemed? Why, of course not. We all know 
that. It is drawing interest to-day right along, 
and will for ten y'ears to come, even if the consti- 
tution isn't amended, but if we do amend the con- 
stitution, we will have it with us till the day of 
judgment. Now, they have put it down as being- 
wiped out, when it hasn't been wiped out any more 
than I have. And it hasn't even been refunded. I 
could understand, if there had been a refunding and 
the old certificate had been taken up with a new 
one, why it might go into the debt statement as be- 
ing retired or redeemed, if the same amount of in- 
debtedness, at the lower rate, was carried in the 
new issues of bonds for that period. But nothing 
of the kind has happened. All that has ever been 
done to it was to consolidate it with other certificates, 

218 - 



BONDS AND CERTIFICATES. 

and that gives it no call to be counted for nearly 
a million dollars in the cancellation of state debt, 
when it couldn't cancel anything, and hasn't as much 
intrinsic value as a copper cent of Boer money in 
London. This looks to me like another discrepancy, 
and a rather serious one, but I'm only asking for 
information now. 

While I'm waiting I have a few remarks to offer 
about them certificates, and which I can offer with- 
out asking any questions of Allen or anybody else. 
For it's always been a peculiarity of mine to know 
a thing when I know it, and I'm dead onto this. The 
question about these certificates, as I have said be- 
fore, is not one of 1872 or of 1881. It is one of 1883, 
for it was then that the mischief was done. I have 
quoted the statute of 1883 before now. but it is 
bound to become a vital point in the controversy, 
and a great deal will be found to hinge on it. The 
certificate of 1872 was issued to meet a deficit. That 
of 1881 was issued to take the place of the original 
one and nearly $2,000,000 in state bonds, canceled 
and retired. But when they got along to 1883 they 
began to see what a big thing there was in the exer- 
cise of this great power over the -school fund, if it 
was carried farther in removing funds out of the 
school fund into the sinking fund, on the presump- 
tion that all such money was to go out of the sinking 
fund in the liquidation of the bonded debt of the 
state. There were hundreds of thousands of dollars, 
in it, and maybe millions in the course of time. 
Now let 'em howl about defamation and slander. I 
say that as long as a poor girl who is guilty of an in- 
discreet or unthoughted act, without wrong inten- 
tion, must suffer in reputation for it it, men of re- 
sponsible age, and who claim to be men of sense, 
can't go on doing unexplainable things and insist that 

219 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

they shall not fall under suspicion. "The king can 
do no wrong" is played out, especially when it is 
cried by the Republic, which the other day put it in 
the picture of a little boy and told the story of his 
disgrace, because he had taken some money of his 
employer, who did not prosecute, and thus make a 
record in court upon which to base and excuse the 
report. Say, I will go up to the help of the Lord 
against the mighty, and papers that do these things 
to little children can't talk to me about slander. 

WHERE THE WOLF CROSSED. 
Where was I at? Oh, the act of 1883! Read it. 
I call it a most remarkable statute in the tremend- 
ous grant of power it confers. It was entitled: "An 
act to provide for the permanent investment of any 
moneys remaining in the state treasury and belong- 
ing to either the public school fund or the seminary 
fund." The vital clause comes in when it provides 
that when any moneys come into the state treasury, 
"from whatever source derived," whether from grant, 
gift, devise, "or any other source," to be credited 
to either the school or seminary fund, the same 
should be taken from the school fund and put into 
the sinking fund, a certificate of indebtedness, in 
an equal amount, and to bear 5 per cent interest, to 
be issued to the school or seminary fund in exchange. 
Isn't it a nice system? "From whatever source 
derived" and "any other source" are broad grants 
of power, particularly when, under the terms of 
the act there is nothing but an implied pledge that 
the money is to go toward debt redemption. It 
was stipulated in the act of 1881 that the bonds 
replaced by the certificates should be canceled in 
the presence of the fund commissioners. In this 
act of two years later it was assumed, by that 

220 



BONDS AND CERTIFICATES. 

class of legislators who always assume everything, 
that the money taken into the sinking fund out of the 
educational funds would be used immediately in the 
reduction of the debts. Let's see how that worked. 
I said last year that there was where the wolf crossed, 
and I've seen nothing since to make me change my 
mind. The very next year after they got that power 
they commenced to take money out of the revenue 
fund and put it in the school fund, and from there 
switch it off into the sinking fund, where it at once 
commenced sinking and kept it up a long time. Look 
on page 258 of the auditor's report, 1885-1886, and you 
will see where $200,000 of the money in the revenue 
fund was moved into the school fund, and from there 
into the sinking fund, and on the next page you will 
find how the fund commissioners issued a certificate 
of indebtedness for it. 

Now follow it after that. Turn to the reports of 
the state debt, page 234. The auditor says that 
$2,626,000 of Missouri bonds were canceled in 1885-86, 
and of this money $1,350,000 was the proceeds of the 
sale of refunding bonds. Where did the rest come 
from? Was any of it that $200,000 put into the sink- 
ing fund, through the school fund, in 1884? Nary a 
penny, according to the reports. The auditor says, 
in two different places, that the money came out of 
the state interest fund and the state revenue fund. 
On page 5 he says: "From receipts into the state in- 
terest fund the interest on the public debt has been 
promptly paid, and the sum of $1,134,282.81 trans- 
ferred to the state sinking fund and used in the re- 
demption of bonds of the state." And on page 233. 
he says: "Surplus money in the state revenue and 
state interest funds and the proceeds derived from 
the sales of the funding bonds enabled the fund com- 
missioners, in 1885, and 1886, to purchase and re- 

221 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

deem the following ($2,626,000) 6 per cent bonds." 
Now figure it for yourself and see where that $200,000 
conies in that had been taken out of the revenue in 
1884. It didn't come in anywhere, according to the 
reports. Half of the money came out of the sale 
of refunding bonds, and the other half from funds 
taken out of the revenue and interest funds. Where 
was that money? Was it loaned out, and somebody 
getting the interest on it? 

HOLE IN THE SCHOOL FUND. 

There's where the wolf crossed, sir. It's the hole 
in that school fund that took two months in the 
effort to cover up, and it's like a blood stain after a 
murder. You can't wipe it out. Allen works all 
around it, but he leaves it there at last, in the admis- 
sion that there have not been cancellations of bonds 
against the certificates since 1883. He tries to qualify 
this by saying that the fund commissioners have 
kept a general balancing in view, but that don't an- 
swer my question of who had that money, and was 
getting the use of that money for more than three 
years. How much longer I am not yet prepared to 
say, but I will be soon. 

Now, no doubt, they will cry out with a loud voice 
that I am anonymous. . But my figures are not. I 
have given you pages and numbers as I went along. 
I am making no innuendoes, but charges such as 
lawyers make, and judges make in a court when there 
is a strong circumstantial chain of evidence against 
a man who has been unable to prove an alibi. What 
they do in the courts I can do in the newspapers. 
The evidence is the thing, and not the witness, as 
long as the witness is unimpeached, and as the main 
witness I am putting on the stand is a Democratic 
auditor, if they want to try to impeach him they can 

222 



BONDS AND CERTIFICATES. 

do it. But I think I can impeach Dockery first. In 
his experted address to the people, he said that the 
auditor did not keep all of the accounts with the 
bank acting as the fiscal agent of the state. The ex- 
perts say the same thing, and admit that there is 
nothing in the auditor's books giving a single figure 
of that bond deal with Kohn & Co. that I have been 
writing about, in which the state was skinned like 
a boiled potato with the jacket on. But Dockery 
finds that, on the auditor's books, there are figures 
showing that more than a million and a half of -dol- 
lars are put down in the books as having been sent 
to the fiscal agent bank, which the books of the 
bank do not show was received. This, of course, was 
in Republican times, Dockery says. Well, then, it 
seems that the Republicans did keep all of their 
financial accounts in the auditor's books, and even 
put down the figures that would give them dead 
away. Say, governor, them experts ought to put you 
through another rehearsal. You are forgetting you* 
lines. They never told you to say the like of that, 
did they? It proves to me, beyond the shadow of a 
doubt, that there is no such entry on the books as 
that you talk of. Stick to it that there has never 
been, at any time, an account kept on the books with 
the fiscal agent. People may believe it, although they 
will wonder at it greatly. But when, for the pur- 
pose of making a case against the Republicans, you 
say they did keep such accounts, and we dropped 
them, the best you are giving us is the worst of it. 
And folks will toss up to settle which were the 
biggest fools — the Republicans who wrote themselves 
down thieves in their own books, and handed these 
books over to the Democrats, or the Democrats who 
took the books in that shape, and didn't find out 
how they had been "worked" by the Republicans, to 
whom they give a clear receipt, for thirty years after. 



THE BOND DEALS. 



"THE OLD POLITICIAN" GOES INTO THE FACTS 
AND FIGURES OF BOTH OF THEM. 



The Revelations Growing Out of Ex-Treasurer Sal- 
mon's Denial of His Responsibility. 



Bare Hooks to Which Suckers Will Rise on [Sight— Begin- 
ning of the Deal with Wall Street. 



[From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.] 
JEFFERSON CITY, MO., November 16.— "There's 
more ways than one," said the Old Politician, "of 
skinning a cat. I told them two or three weeks ago 
that they could put me on my uppers at the beginning 
of a hard winter if they could produce the official 
report they have said was made by Jim McGinnis, 
to the effect that the Republicans had robbed the 
state of $20,000,000 in railroad deals. I challenged 
them to show it, and offered odds they couldn't do 
it. I haven't heard of any of their newspapers, or 
any of their leaders, taking me up, and not one of 
them has disputed the statement I made as to just 
what it was McGinnis said and how he came to say 
it. There has been a silence all along the line so 
deep you could cut it with a knife. 

"Now, I haven't lived a long time in this world for 
nothing, and the next week after that I worked in 
a story, to illustrate a point, in which I said that 
Stephen's store, in Callaway county, is 'on the other 
side of the river' from this place. Lordy, lordy, how 
they come a-runnin'! The Rev. Dr. Burnham, of Ful- 

224 



THE BOND DEALS. 

ton, the Fulton Sun, the St. Louis Republic, and divers 
and sundry other country papers, in all sections of 
the state, join in the chorus that Stephen's store isn't 
on the river at all. Well, who said it was? They're 
after me on that point so strong that they think they 
can put the people to sleep about what it was that 
Jim McGinnis said. But as I was the boy who 
wanted to know, when the fire that was started to 
smoke a rat out of his hole had burned up everything 
on the place, what had become of the rat, I hang 
onto that point like a bull pup to a bone, and insist 
on knowing what it was that Jim McGinnis said, and 
I'll double the odds to all takers that they can't prove 
up what they said he said. This bet is open for a 
few weeks longer, and if somebody don't cover it 
I'll tell what it was that Jim McGinnis said, myself. 

"DIGNIFIED SILENCE." 

"And as I was saying, there's more ways than one 
of skinning a cat. When pompous asses or Pharisa- 
ical knaves pretend that they maintain a dignified sil- 
ence toward facts and figures that they can no more 
answer than they could go to hell in a hand basket, 
leave them a little opening on some utterly imma- 
terial point, and see how soon that dignified silence 
will come to a sudden stop. It comes to a sudden 
stop exactly like Rufe Hybarger's broncho did. I 
used to own a cattle ranch in the Panhandle, and 
Rufe was one of my cowboys. He came from 
Illinois, and was a good horseman, but the broncho 
was a new proposition to him. He wasn't well ac- 
quainted with him, and had too much confidence in 
his own toes, if he once got them in the stirrup. He 
came down there with his broncho campaign already 
mapped out, and it was a very simple one, too. He 
would dig his right spur into the brute as he swung 

225 

15 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

himself on, which would start the thing to goin' be- 
fore he got in the saddle, for he had heard that the 
bnckin' always comes after a man gets in his seat 
and before he can get the beast to get a move on 
himself. The idea is, or was, that it's the gettin' in 
the saddle that makes the trouble, and that if the 
varmint can be started off a second before that hap- 
pens, he'll keep a goin'. I'd seen it tried before, but 
I kep' still, because I wanted to see Rufe try it, be- 
cause I'd heard he was a man who wouldn't believe 
a mule would kick unless he was kicked by one, and 
I knew that nothing I could tell him would do any 
good. Well, he tried it, and the thing started off ac- 
cording to the programme. That broncho got a move 
on him, and when Rufe got a firm seat the beast was 
goin' at a rapid gait. Maybe he went half a mile, 
but he stopped all of a sudden like, and tried to put 
all his hoofs in the circumference of a silver half 
dollar. I think he done it. and so does Rufe. We 
picked Rufe up with his mouth full of sand and 
blood, and when he come to, the first thing he said 
was: 'My dignity's gone, but I might stand that if 
I hadn't lost nearly all of my teeth.' 

"That's what's become of dignified silence around 
here. It's not only their dignity that's gone, but their 
teeth, too, for the people won't go much on dignity 
that keeps silence in the face of the most serious 
charges they are challenged to disprove, and then 
rushes out with a foaming mouth and a bloodshot eye 
to claim errors in local geography which Avere never 
made. Say, they give themselves dead away, and 
they'll do it every time, just like a sucker will rise 
to a bare hook as often as you throw it at him. The 
sucker is hard up for something to chew, and so are 
they. There's not only more ways than one of skin- 
ning a cat. but there's more ways than two. Last 

226 



THE BOND DEALS. 

week I offered a hundred dollars a name, for every 
name that Dockery, or Allen, or Salmon, or any of 
them could give me of members of the legislature 
who voted to sell the government bonds, because I 
said, the government bonds were' sold without con- 
sulting the legislature at all. Just think of that! 
Focus your intellect on that proposition for a minute. 
An asset of the state worth nearly $2,000,000, sold our 
by a little crowd of men without ever calling the di- 
rect representatives of the people in to ask their 
opinion about it. That's why I offered a hundred 
dollars a name for every member of the legislature 
who voted for the bond sale. Put your ear to the 
ground and see if you can hear 'em comin'. But don't 
keep your ear there until you hear 'em, for a hard 
winter's comin' and you'd get it frost bit. I'll tell 
you when to keep your ear to the ground till you hear 
'em comin' after me, and it'll be the week after I 
put it out cold that Lawson is in Ray county. They'll 
send it out to the Republic and the rest of their coun- 
try press, that Lawson's right on the edge of Ray, 
Caldwell and Clinton. That's the time to hold your 
ear against the ground till you hear 'em comin'. 
They're sure to come. 

THE BOND DETAILS. 

"Some of 'em are comin' already. Ex-Treasurer 
Salmon is out in a card, for distribution in the coun- 
try press, in which he accuses me of doing him an in- 
justice in the charge that he negotiated the sale of 
the bonds. Here's what I said: 'The men who first 
proposed that bond sale never told us the amount of 
premium secured on the bonds in any statement they 
made during the discussion of this question last year.' 
I guess the reason Maj. Salmon takes it as personal 
to himself is that he wrote a communication to the 

227 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

Republic, in the discussion last year, in which he 
claimed the credit for originating the proposition, 
while he was in the office of state treasurer. That's 
what started me off on the thing, and I am glad to see 
the major is now disavowing the responsibility he 
was so ready to assume last year. But to get back to 
the point, what he is trying to do, and what his party 
press is trying to help him do, is to convict me of 
error and injustice when I am guilty of neither. 
They have risen to the hook this week as readily as 
they did last, and if I throw out another one next 
week they'll rise again. 

''But the major is a shrewd old fish, and doesn't 
swallow hook, bob and sinker. He nibbles around. 
Why doesn't he point out the errors of calculation in 
the computations of premiums on the sale of them 
bonds? There's discrepancies for you, but so plain 
that anybody can see they are intentional; I mean 
anybody of the sense and shrewdness of Maj. Sal- 
mon. Some of the little fish of the press are deep in 
the figures over it, and you can hear them screech- 
ing, 'Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.' All right! 
But I would like to have got the major on that hook. 
Perhaps he remembered that when I traversed this 
same subject last year the discrepancies didn't occur. 
That's a fact, because I used, along with them, some 
other figures I haven't used yet this time, but which 
I'm going to use now. 

"But, first and foremost, to go back to the rat. 1 
was on a jury once, when we tried a man for murder. 
An old woman and a little girl had been murdered in 
a lonely farmhouse, and some money in the house 
was gone. Suspicion fell on the old woman's son, be- 
cause he had fallen out with his mother on account 
of his wife, and because he was the only heir. But 
he hired a lawyer, who discovered that the day before 

228 



THE BOND DEALS. 

the murder a cousin of the old lady who lived in 
Ohio had called on her, on a visit, and had been seen 
going down the road by a number of men who lived 
in the neighborhood. 

A CLEAR "ALIBI." 

"When the murder was discovered, the second day 
after it happened, the cousin had disappeared, but 
when the lawyer heard of him he went back to Ohio 
and located him, working on a railroad. He was ar- 
rested and brought to Missouri on a requisition, in- 
sisting that he had never been in the neighborhood 
before. Some of the best men in the county identified 
him as the man they had seen going down the road, 
but he brought out a whole raft of people from Ohio, 
including the engineer, the conductor and the other 
brakemen of the train he worked on, who all swore 
that he was on the road the night the murder was 
committed. It was the clearest alibi I ever heard, 
and as long as the witnesses were unimpeached I felt 
it justice to give their evidence its full weight. And 
so did nearly all of the other eleven, for the first bal- 
lot showed ten for acquittal and two for conviction, 
and one of them come over in an hour. The other 
was a bullet-headed fellow, who kept on sayin' all of 
the time: 'Where's the fireman at? Why didn't he 
come?" We humored him for awhile, but when we 
began to get hungry and found out there wasn't a 
pack of cards in the whole crowd of us, we began 
to get riled. We reported late the next day that we 
couldn't agree, but the judge held us in and said the 
case was so plain that we couldn't help agreeing. It 
seems he had heard that there was only one man 
standing out, and he offered a few remarks about 
stubbornness on a jury, but the bullet-headed fellow 
ups and says, 'Where's the fireman at?" and the 

229 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

bailiff ordered us out. But when we got back to the 
jury room, you can bet that fellow had a picnic on a 
rainy day. He wouldn't give an inch, but kept on 
sayin' 'Where's the fireman- at?' till after dark, and 
then I got him by the throat and bumped his head 
back against the wall. 'Darn you,' said I, 'the fire- 
man's gettin' his three square meals a day while 
you're keepin' us here, and he's gittin' his drinks 
reg'lar while you're a-holdin' us in here as dry as 
mackerel. If you don't give up I'll shut your wind 
off.' And, sure enough, his tongue did begin to loll 
out and I had to ease up on him, and what do you 
think? As soon as he got his first wind he gasped. 
'Where's the fireman at?' Well, sir, the next day the 
judge had to let us go, disagreed. At the next terra 
of court the state had the fireman, and he swore that 
the prisoner was not on the train the night of the 
murder. The engineer and the rest of them who 
swore that he was failed to show up and couldn't be 
found. He was convicted and would have been 
hanged if the jail hadn't took fire and burnt him so 
bad that he died ten minutes after making a confes- 
sion that he did the deed. 

WHO GOT THE INTEREST? 

"Ever since that I've liked the man who will stand 
by an idea he gets in his head all the way through 
thick and thin. And now I don't care who can prove 
an alibi or who can't, I've got an idea in my head, 
and I've got a question to ask, and here it is: Who 
got the interest? Them bonds were sold in Decem- 
ber, 1875. At that same time $50,148 in interest was 
due on them. Who got it? That fact is not brought 
out in the expert report, any more than the fact of 
where the fireman was *at' was brought out in the 
evidence. The state didn't get it. That's as plain as 

230 



THE BOND DEALS. 

daylight. Even Shannon, who has been foolish 
enough to say that he ran the deal that sold these 
bonds, doesn't claim that the state got that interest. 
Of course, then, it went to the Wall street firm of 
Kohn, Popper & Co., and now let's see whether they 
are entitled to it or not. 

"In order to cut off a slice like that the Wall street 
firm of Kohn, Popper & Co. ought to have paid more 
than the market premium, oughtn't they? Well, I 
guess yes. I figure that, with such a tail to go with 
the hide as that, they might at least have paid the 
lowest open market premium on 6 per cent bonds 
which was being paid in December, 1875. Don't you? 
The lowest premium paid on 6 per cent 5-20 bonds at 
that time was 18 per cent. The highest was more 
than 25 per cent. I take my figures from the treasury 
books; 125X is the exact fraction that records the 
high-water mark of that class of bonds then; 118 is 
the round figure that represents the low-water mark. 
Don't blame me, gentlemen, if these figures don't suit 
you, or carry out ihe sleight-of-hand devices with 
which you are attempting to deceive the people. 1 
am not a contortionist, a juggler nor an expert. I go 
by the books, and it's the books I'm giving you now, 
and you know it, for they're as open to you as they 
are to me. And what I'm betting is that you are 
going to answer these figures with dignified silence, 
unless there should be a typographical error which 
will stand some of the figures on their heads. 

"Who got the interest? Do the books show it? 
Not on your life. I guess this is one of them financial 
accounts, which the governor says the books don t 
show. The fact is I know this is one of them, for the 
experts, in their report, say that there is no trace, 
anywhere in the books, of any of these transactions 
with the Wall street house of Kohn, Popper & Co. 

231 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

Here is the language of the expert report. Speaking 
of a little balance that didn't balance in some ac- 
counts with Kohn, Popper & Co., the experts say: 
'Sales of United States bonds and purchases of Mis- 
souri State bonds were made through this firm. 
There is no formal account on the general books 
showing the transactions had with the firm.' 

"TOUCH" THE "OLD POLITICIAN." 

"Now, gentlemen, I've got you. Your assertions 
are no better than mine, and not nearly as good, be- 
cause I am proving mine, as I go along, out of the 
books of the United States treasury. If you could 
bring the books of the treasury of Missouri against 
them, I would admit the raising of an issue, but your 
own experts prove all that I have said, last year and 
this, that Kohn & Co., handled both classes of bonds 
in the conversion, and that there was nothing in the 
books of Missouri to show how much they made out 
of it, or how much anybody else made out of it. 
Say, if they're going to make a private touch 
to raise the money to pay the experts, they oughtn't 
to overlook me, for begod, I am getting more vindica- 
tion out of their work than anybody else I know of. 
And what I want to know is, who got that interest. 
Kohn & Co., paid Zy 2 per cent less for them bonds 
than they would have brought in the open market, 
and took along, in addition to their face, $50,148 in 
accrued interest. Why, say, I wonder how we ever 
got so stuck on ourselves that we got to saying that 
we are from Missouri and they'll have to show us. 
when for thirty years after this was done we have 
kept in power the party that done it. I've helped to 
do it, and am privileged to cuss, on that account. 
All of us have got what Lacey got, because we have 
been the same kind of fools that Lacey was. Lacey 



THE BOND DEALS. 

was a tenderfoot in a mining town, with more money 
than sense. The whole camp caught onto Lacey, and 
there was always a crowd when he was playing 
poker, which was nearly all the time. Every time 
Lacey lost $250 the bar set up the drinks to the house, 
and Lacey got his drinks along with the rest. That's 
what he got out of the game. 

"There's only one man who has ever given it out 
flat that he sold them bonds, and he says he hated to 
do it mighty bad. It was on the 4th of November, 
of last year, in answer to one of my statistical 
analyses of the bond situation, that in a communica- 
tion to the Republic, R. D. Shannon, who was the 
state superintendent of education at that time, owned 
up that he was the man, and he did it in a way that 
convinced me that while he was, perhaps, the man 
who made the last deal in the game, the cards were 
stacked by somebody else. 'I employed,' said Shan- 
non, 'as a go-between, or agent, Mr. D. Stone. The 
larger his purchase of bonds (state bonds) the larger 
his commission.' Shannon tells us that he was anx- 
ious to get these bonds from Kohn & Co., who had 
been let in on the ground floor of the fund commis- 
sioners, who were conducting the sale of state bonds. 
They had run a corner on the new issue of state 
bonds, although Maj. Salmon had warned the fund 
commissioners that the government bonds held by the 
state were liable to be called in at any time. Shan- 
non is sure the matter had not been thought of until 
after Kohn & Co., had run their corner; and then, be 
says, he noticed that the bonds held in the school 
fund had been called in by the secretary of the treas- 
ury. He at once began trying to get some of the 
bonds which had been sold to Kohn, & Co., and em- 
ployed Stone as a confidential agent, in order to not 
let the New Yorkers know how bad the state needed 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

the bonds it had just sold to them. But they appear 
to have found it out, for they kept on putting up 
their price all the time, until at last they got above 
par. They had bought the bonds, only a few days 
before, according to page 242 of the auditor's report 
for 1885, at 2 per cent below par. When they got 
above Shannon seems to think that the sooner he 
closed the deal the better, and be bought 1250 bonds 
of them, paying them about $190,000 more than they 
had got the bonds for. Now, Salmon says that the 
change was made for the purpose of helping the 
state's credit in the purchase of her own bonds, but 
it seems, according to Shannon, that Kohn & Co. had 
more faith in our credit when the bonds were put on 
sale than we had, although they didn't have enough, 
at that time, to pay par. But their faith in our credit 
took a big jump in a few days, when they discovered 
in spite of all Shannon's desperate efforts at conceal- 
ment, that the state wanted to buy them back, for 
they advanced 33 points in one night. 

FAMILY AFFAIRS. 
"Now, nobody would call this a good trade. The 
man who would make a horse trade like that would 
never do for the Mullanphy market, but it seemed 
to tickle the fund commissioners immensely. They 
insisted that Shannon should go to New York and sell 
the government bonds. 'I protested,' says Shannon, 
'against the order of the board, and pleaded that I 
should be relieved of further responsibility.' But 
the fund commissioners were lost in admiration of 
Shannon's great financial feat, and he was getting 
ready to go, when Ed. Popper, a member of the firm 
of Kohn & Co., turned up here and told Shannon he 
understood that he had some government bonds to 
sell. Poor Shannon! All his plans for secrecy seemed 

234 



THE BOND DEALS. 

to fail. He asked Popper to make a bid. Popper 
made it, afterward raised it $10,000, and the thing 
was done. Nothing said about premiums in the open 
market; nothing said about who would get the in- 
terest due in six weeks; nothing but a lump sum 
named and taken, the bonds to be delivered in De- 
cember to Kohn & Co., when the state bonds were to 
be delivered from Kohn & Co. to Missouri. Nice 
little family arrangement, wasn't it? But before you 
drop it, figure out who was ahead on the deal. What 
we lost was the difference in price of the state bonds 
from what we could have bought them at ($988 per 
bond), and what we paid when we bought 1250 bonds 
of Kohn & Co. at a % per cent premium. Put that 
down at $100,000. Another loss was between the 
14y 2 per cent premium Kohn & Co. paid us for the 
government bonds, and the lowest market premium 
paid that month, 118. Put that down at $58,000. Then 
there's the interest due the month the bonds were 
sold, $50,148. Add all that up and you'll find our loss 
to be $298,000. After you find our loss you know 
Kohn & Co.'s profit, for all that we lost they gained. 
"And there's not a scratch of a pen in the books 
of Missouri to tell of the ins and outs of our dealings 
with this house. No wonder. I have dug it out of 
the United States treasury books, and the reports of 
bond sales, and the fluctuations of the New York stock 
exchange in the premium list. But there are some 
points I can't make clear. Shannon says the bonds 
were called in in the latter part of October or the 
early part of November, 1875. That date would carry 
them through December and give the state the bene- 
fit of the accrued interest of $50,000, even if the secre- 
tary allowed three months, and, under all of the re- 
funding laws, he could not allow less. What I sus- 
pect is that there was a long time left. If there 

235 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

wasn't, why would Kohn & Co. pay any premium 
at all? If the bonds were to be canceled at once, or 
lose their interest-earning power, why in the devil 
would as shrewd men as Kohn & Co. proved them- 
selves to be, pay 14y 2 per cent more than par for 
them? Say, don't you know that if all the deal was 
straight I wouldn't have to be asking these questions 
now? Not on your life. All these matters, so es- 
sential to any intelligent understanding of the case, 
would have been laid before us without the asking. 
And that's a fact that makes me say that we haven't 
got to the bottom of it yet. I will keep on until I 
find what made Kohn & Co. pay more than par for 
bonds that were right at the point of redemption. 
Watch my smoke! 

A LITTLE FIGURING. 
"I want to call your attention to one item in the 
expert report. It's the one covering the interest on 
the certificates of indebtedness, $4,970,436.27. An aw- 
ful big pile of money, but what I want to do is to 
figure the interest on that part of the sum that rep- 
resents the bonds. At the time the bonds were sold 
to Kohn & Co. the government was selling and ex- 
changing 5 per cent bonds to replace the issue of 
which our bonds were a part, and what we ought to 
have done, and what we would have done if there 
hadn't been a big job in it, would have been to sell 
the bonds and invest the proceeds in the purchase of 
these new 5s. We ought to have got over $2,000,000 
on the basis of the market premium, but, taking it 
on the basis our bonds were actually sold at, we 
could have bought $1,913,866 of new 5 per cent bonds. 
Five per cent for one year on that sum is $95,693.30. 
We could have drawn that rate for six years and got 
from the government $574,159.80. From that time on, 

236 



THE BOND DEALS. 

by refunding, we could have got an interest of 4 per 
cent per annum, or $1,531,092.80 in the twenty years 
since 1881. What we would have got out of the gov- 
ernment on them bonds since they were sold to Kohn 
& Co. for less than their market value is just $2,975,- 
282.60. We would have been getting that for noth- 
ing. Now, on the certificates of indebtedness for the 
same amount, at the annual interest rate of 5 per 
cent, we have paid out in the twenty-six years since 
the bonds were sold $2,488,025.80. The schools have 
got out of us in twenty-six years all that they would 
have got out of the government and $412,743.20 more. 
I don't see how anybody can figure a good specula- 
tion out of that. There is less than half a million 
dollars added to the school fund in nearly a genera- 
tion by changing the form of a source of income from 
the general government to the taxpayers of the par- 
ticular state. All this reminds me of Dave Kyle, who 
used to live up in Saline county. He had a mortgage 
on the farm adjoining his and was getting 7 per cent 
on it flat, but- he wanted more and sold the mortgage 
and buried the proceeds in a hole in the ground and 
issued himself a note against it. When the interest 
was due he would go to the hole and get it out. They 
caught him at it at last and sent him to the Fulton 
asylum, and he is there yet for all that I know. The 
court said he was not capable of managing his af- 
fairs, but the last time I saw him Dave swore, as he 
bumped his head against the padded walls of his 
cell, that he was taking bigger interest out of the 
hole than he got out of the mortgaged farm. 

CERTAINLY NOT FOOLS. 
"And he's just like these fellows in another respect. 
He never made a record of his remarkable financial 
transactions in his books. His affairs were in a very 

237 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

involved condition when they sent him down the 
road, but nobody accused him of dishonesty. What 
I expect, though, is that the fellows who got away 
with our bonds would rather be called knaves than 
fools, and what they particularly congratulate them- 
selves upon is that the people have not yet declared 
them to be either. And the next step they took after 
selling the bonds, in the way of wiping out the school 
fund entirely, is a pretty good sign that they are not 
fools. You see, the constitution of Missouri is very 
strict in its powers granted for the raising of taxes. 
The largest rate it authorizes is the interest tax, and 
it puts a strict limitation on this after the bonded 
debt is extinguished. After the government bonds 
had been sold to the great advantage of somebody 
who got the rake-off, it suddenly dawned on them 
that such large purchases of state bonds for the 
school funds as had been made, particularly if they 
were to be continued, would, too, soon wipe out the 
bonded debt of Missouri, and stop the running of the 
interest tax. Now, don't forget it, that's right where 
the line crosses on this second deal. They had to re- 
tire the original batch of bonds, for which the first 
certificates were issued, in 1881, but what's that Allen 
says about bonds retired since then? No record of 
bond cancellation with the money taken out of the 
school fund, since then, does he say? Of course not. 
Getting rid of the debt, and stopping the interest tax 
has never been what they wanted. There's another 
rat hole there, but I haven't time to look into it now." 



THE EXPERT WORK. 



"THE OLD POLITICIAN" THINKS IT WAS DONE 
MANY YEARS AGO. 



The Origin of All "Discrepancies" and "Mistakes" 
in Bookkeeping in Missouri. 



One of the, Strangest Financial Deals in the History of 
Any State Auditor and Fiscal Agent. 



[From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.] 
JEFFERSON CITY, MO., November 9.— "I'm from 
Missouri and you'll have to show me," said the Old 
Politician, "what's become of the rat. I was the boy 
you've heard tell of who didn't lose sight of the main 
point in the case. A lawyer had an examination of a 
number of boys who wanted to go into his office and 
qualify for the profession. He didn't want but one, 
and so he put them all to a test. 'Once,' said he, 
'there was a farmer who got after the rats in his 
corncrib, and built a fire to smoke them out of their 
holes. There was only one come out, and he made a 
dive for the rear end of the crib, with the dogs and 
the farmer and all the boys after him. He hid away 
under the corn, and while they were after getting 
him out of that the fire set fire to something else and 
the whole crib was ablaze before they knew it. 
There was a high wind blowing, and the barn and all 
the other cribs caught fire, and it wasn't long till the 
house was smoking, too. The barns were full of 
stock and feed, and the farmer had $4000 in cash and 

239 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

notes buried under one corner of it. Before the fire 
got through pretty nearly everything was gone.' 

"Then the lawyer waited for remarks. Some of 
them talked about the necessity of insurance, and 
some about the value of fire departments, and some 
wanted to know if the farmer saved the money he 
had in the hole. But one boy chirped up and said: 
'What I want to know is what became of that rat?' 
'You're the boy I want to study law,' said the lawyer, 
'because you don't scatter, and can keep your mind 
on the beginnings of things.' You bet. And I've 
been that way ever since. And I was never more so 
than when I look through the auditor's experted 
figures and the governor's experted communications 
and official declarations on the funds. Say, where's 
the rat? There's lots of smoke, and you bet there's 
lot of fire to make it, and while they're trying to put 
out the fire that rat will get away if somebody don't 
go after him. So here goes. 

WHERE THE RAT IS HID. 

"I'll begin by showing you the compile he's hid 
under. Read what Dockery says and what Allen 
says about the origin and development of the school 
fund. It is governor this and that said so and so 
about converting the canceled government bonds into 
certificates of indebtedness. It is senator so and so 
who voted in 1881, and 1883, and 1885, to issue certifi- 
catetes in lieu of bonds, or in lieu of cash, transferred 
from the school fund to the sinking fund. In all of 
the legislation relating to the issuing of these certifi- 
cates, both the governor and the auditor are very 
specific. They are so specific that they remind me of 
Sam Arnold the night he made his grand bluff in St. 
Joe. You see, he had been having a run of luck in 
the early part of the night, which he knew wouldn't 



THE EXPERT WORK. 

stay with him long, because it never did. The 
strength of his game was in the dead cold nerve with 
which he could run a bluff on a bobtail, or a pair of 
deuces, and one way he worked that along was by 
showing his hand, face up on the board, every time 
he was called and made a winning. In that way they 
got scared of him and didn't know when the bluff 
come in. In St. Joe that night, while his run of luck 
lasted, he had taken in several bets on great big 
hands, and always showed his hand down to prove 
it. When his luck turned, he lost for awhile, and 
then brought in the grandest bluff he ever run, on 
nothing higher than a pair of tens. There was al- 
ready $2000 in the center when he raised it another 
thousand without batting an eyelid. He had made 
that win many a time before, and he was sure it 
would go again. But there was a man in the game 
that nig»ht he had never played with before. I guess 
it must have been the feller that grew up out of that 
boy that wanted to know where the rat was. Any- 
how, he up and said: 'When a man is so kind that he 
shows his hand for nothing there's no use paying him 
for it. Take the money and show your hand.' 'I'll 
take the money,' said Sam, as he raked it in, 'but this 
is the place where I avail myself of the rule of the 
game, and throw my hand in the discard.' 

"You see he didn't have the cards to show. When 
lie had the cards he showed 'em up, and when he 
didn't have them he kept still about it. And that's 
just the trick Dockery and Allen are working on the 
school fund. They tell you the names of all the men 
in the executive and legislative branches of the gov- 
ernment who have ever written or voted for' the con- 
version of the state bonds into certificates. But 
that'snot where the fire started. Go through Allen's 
report and you'll find a missing link in the chain of 

241 
16 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

governors and legislators who are in the line. That 
link is dropped out at the place where the sale of the 
governmentbonds, and the purchase of the state bonds 
*in their place was engineered. This occurred, says the 
auditor, under the wise administration of Gov. Har- 
din, but neither he nor the governor quotes any official 
document of Gov. Hardin recommending any sale or 
conversion, and I will pay a hundred dollars a name 
for every name of a senator or representative you will 
find in either Dockery's or Allen's experted contribu- 
tions as having voted for that sale and conversion. 
The reason is that that proposition was never sub- 
mitted to the legislature. What do you think of that? 
That was the first time in the history of the Missouri 
school fund, since the state 'had such a fund, that 
anything of importance was done in connection with 
the management of that fund without consulting the 
law-making power. If they ever said anything to 
Gov. Hardin about it he must have refused to rec- 
ommend it to the legislature in his official message, 
for it never got before that body, and more than a 
million and a half dollars in government bonds be- 
longing to the state of Missouri were sold without 
consulting the representatives of the people. That's 
why you don't find the names of the Republicans in 
that legislature who voted to sell the government 
bonds. Why, if that proposition had ever got before 
the legislature it would have been beaten so awful 
bad that it would never have been heard of again, 
and they knew it. 

THE RAT HOLE. 

"That's the rat hole. There's where, the fire 
started, and Dockery and Allen can't pump water 
enough to put it out. Allen says: 'Tn December, 
1875, under the wise administration of Gov. Charles 

242 



THE EXPERT WORK. 

H. Hardin, the state board of education sold the 
$1,671,600 of United States bonds for $1,913,866, and 
with the proceeds of the sale, other receipts and the 
cash awaiting investment $1,949,000 of 6 per cent Mis- 
souri bonds were purchased for the fund at a cost of 
$1,958,846.40, including $2512.50 paid for brokers' com- 
missions. The result was that the state school fund 
was increased more than $200,000 without costing the 
taxpayers a cent.' 

"This is a rat hole that will bear looking into. 
There was $1,671,600 in government securities sold 
without the authority of the legislature for $1,913,866. 
They ought to have brought more than that. The 
premium in gold bonds in December, 1875, was 14 per 
cent. Look at the bond reports of the United States 
treasury if you don't believe me. Now it's an easy 
matter of figuring, in which we won't need any New 
York expert assistance, that 14 per cent on $1,871,600 
ought to bring back, principal and premium, $2,340.- 
240, but it didn't fetch it. What did come back, ac- 
cording to all the auditors who have reported the 
matter since, was $1,913,866, or less than 12 per cent 
premium on the face of the bonds sold. It is right 
at this point that the cry of fire is raised, but keep 
your eye on the rat hole. If you don't you may make 
as big a fool of yourself as the auditor did in 1885, 
who reported that the $1,913,866 the face and prem- 
ium of the bonds brought together was 14y 2 per cent 
premium on the $1,671,600 the bonds were worth at 
par. Look on page 255 of the auditor's report for 
1885, and you will find that statement made. Now 
figure it for yourself, and it won't take you five min- 
utes to see that that rate of premium ought to have 
given the state $2,420,398. I wonder if that was one 
of the mistakes in the bookkeeping we hear so much 
about. If them bonds were sold at 14y 3 per cent 

243 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

premium, who got the. $500,000 over and above what 
the state got? Keep your eye on the rat hole. 

"The men who first proposed that bond sale never 
told us the amount of premium secured on the bonds 
in any statement they made during the discussion 
of this question last year. I file notice of priority in 
this discovery of a new discrepancy in the auditor's 
reports, involving another half a million dollars, and 
the men who engineered that bond sale had better 
hire these experts, before they get out of the state. 
to fix it up. The fact is, I hardly think they could 
have got 114 y 2 in December of that year, but they 
could have got 114 or 113.9 and turned over half a 
million dollars more to the state than they did. The 
price they did sell at, according to the face of the 
bonds and the amount of money they turned into the 
treasury after the sale, was, approximately, 111.9, or 
a loss of $2 on every $100 of bonds sold. 

"Now, why was such a sacrifice made, without any 
authority of the legislature of Missouri? It is dark 
in the rat hole, but we had better look a little farther 
into it. 

STATE AND GOVERNMENT BONDS. 

"The excuse that has been offered for the sale 
was that the government bonds were short-time 
bonds, having been called in by the government for 
redemption at an early day. But there were two pay- 
ments of interest on the bonds, to be made between 
the date of their sale and that of their cancellation. 
Bear that in mind. Six per cent annual interest on 
$1,671,600, if you don't make a discrepancy in the 
counting, will be found to be a little over $100,000. 
The difference between the price the bonds went at, 
and the market price in the open market in Decem- 
ber, 1875, was about $425,000— $425,000 less than the 

244 



THE EXPERT WORK. 

market value for bonds, with two interest coupons 
attached, and which, within an hour could be sold 
for the full amount of their face, interest and pre- 
mium, in gold, for at that time gold was being ac- 
cumulated by the government for resumption. Say, 
it makes me blush in bed at night to think how Mis- 
souri was taken in and done for by Wall street on 
that deal. They just took us in and peeled us like 
a bannana, and then threw away the skin. This was 
done by Kohn & Co., of Wall street, who dealt with 
Dewitt C. Stone, a partner in the banking business of 
Maj. Harvey Salmon, who was then the state treas- 
urer of Missouri. 

"At that time the government was offering to ex- 
change at par for such bonds as it was calling in 4 
and 5 per cent bonds to run for thirty years. An ex- 
change of the Missouri 6s for these was the thing to 
do, and we would have them yet, and would have 
saved that $425,000 we lost in dealing with Kohn & 
Co., and we would have been saving $70,000 annually 
which we have been raising out of the taxpayers 
every year in the interest we would be drawing on 
the face of them bonds. But Kohn & Co. were not 
through with us yet. They had to have another pull 
at our leg. Salmon and Stone told them the money 
received from the sale of the government bonds was 
to be invested in Missouri state bonds, and I guess 
they invited them out here to be in at the killing. 
Anyhow Kohn & Co., of Wall street, were on hand, 
and the first sales of the new issue of state bonds 
were made to them, and they got them at less than 
par. Consult the reports of the auditor, page 242 of 
the 1885 issue, and you will find that the bonds sold 
by the fund commissioners went at less than par. 
Then turn over to page 255 and you will find that ail 
the bonds bought by the state board of education 

245 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

with the money realized from the sale of the govern- 
ment bonds, with the exception of $40,000, were sold 
at a premium. You will ask, of course, why the fund 
commissioners would sell Missouri bonds to Kohn & 
Co. cheaper than they would sell them to the state 
board of education, at a time when the plea was that 
the government bonds had been sold for the sake of 
the premiums in order to get as many of the state 
bonds as possible into the school fund. Hold on, 
now; don't be too fast, for you're going to hear the 
strangest thing you ever listened to, and which 1 
could not have believed if Dick Shannon, who was 
superintendent of public schools at that time, hadn't 
said so himself. The state did not put in a bid for 
bonds until after Kohn & Co. had got about all there 
was for sale that year, and then they found out that 
they had to have them, and that they must have them 
right away. Kohn & Co., had cornered the market, 
but they offered to sell the state board of education 
what they needed at a premium. They had bought 
the bonds at about $988. They sold over 1000 of them 
to the state board of education for a premium ol 
three-eights of 1 per cent and went back to New York 
with another clean profit of $150,000. The member 
of the firm who was in Jefferson City negotiating 
these deals stepped across from the fund commis- 
sioner's offices to the office of Supt. Shannon and 
made the dicker, and that night he left for New York. 
And if ever I meet him again I will say. "Shake, old 
man. You caught a sucker and you bumped his 
head, as you had a right to do, and Missouri is able 
to lose the $700,000 you rolled her for.' And if he 
should lean over in my ear and whisper, 'Maybe 1 
didn't get it all,' I would ask no questions — for the 
honor of the state. I'd know that the rat had got in 
his hole and pulled the hole in after him. 

246 



THE EXPERT WORK. 

AUDITORS AND EXPERTS. 

"These experts have been hired to push it in, but 
I'll show you where it is befre they get it all away. 
Now they say that other states have school funds 
with certificates of the state's indebtedness to them 
as a basis of security. But where can they show 
me another state where a $2,000,000 fund in govern- 
ment bonds was sold out to make way for certifi- 
cates? Every state but this, in which certificates 
have been issued, has had no other basis of credit in 
the fund. The crime of Missouri was in the deal in- 
volved in the sale of the government bonds and the 
purchase of the state bonds for the school fund, and 
the truth is just as sure to come out some day as it 
is the truth that I am not any of the individuals 
people take me to be. I call it a crime, for I believe 
it was one, but if it was a blunder, or a series of 
blunders, such blunders are worse than crimes. 

"Before the experts get that hole all pulled in. on 
the installment plan, I am going to take another look 
in it. Allen is as shy on another point as he is in 
quoting the names of legislators who voted to sell 
the government bonds. He says the fund commis- 
sioners have been careful about the exercise of the 
power for the retirement of state bonds through the 
absorption of school moneys into the sinking fund. 
But their powers in that respect are unlimited. Allen 
quotes only part of the statute concerning these, ab- 
sorptions. The fact is, you know, that it was not 
until after they got into the certificate line of busi- 
ness that they began to see what there was in it for 
them. They kept on working a good thing for all 
there was in it, and I guess they're not near through 
yet, if they can keep in the saddle and the nag don't 
buck and throw them. Section 10,530 of the revised 

247 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

statutes gives them the power to take out of the 
treasury 'any moneys, from whatever source derived, 
whether from grant, gift, devise or any other source, 
to be added either to the public school fund or the 
seminary fund of the state,' and expropriate it for 
sinking fund uses. And they have already exercised 
this power in more than one case. The treasury 
itself is open to them under the construction that the 
part of the state revenue set apart for the use of the 
schools is a part of the school fund. 

RAT-HOLE AND RAT. 
"And the man makes no mistake who concludes 
that the rat hole and the rat are the two things out 
of the hunting of which all this fire and smoke have 
come. Right there, in the sale of the government and 
purchase of the state bonds, are the t|wo black seeds 
of this Jonah's gourd, which has spread over all the 
state. Corruption grows with what it feeds on. The 
Bourbons know it, and Dockery admits it in the claim 
that the auditors' reports do not include all of the 
financial operations of the state. That's so. You'll 
not find anything about the two deals with Kohn & 
Co. in them, except as it is put down in the figures 
showing the size of the transactions. What Dockery 
says, though, is that the auditor does not have to in- 
clude all of the figures of financial operations of the 
state in his reports. That's a new one on me. I 
wonder was it one of the experts who put Dockery 
onto that, for, by the mass, no man of an ordinary 
mind would ever think of it, and Dockery, if left to 
himself, no matter how hard up he might be for a 
reason for the discrepancies, would ever think of that. 
I believe that must have come out of the brain of an 
expert who knows how to juggle figures, and nothing 
else. For what in the name of the Lord is an auditor 

24S 



THE EXPERT WORK. 

worth to a state if bis reports do not include and set 
out all the financial operations of all the departments 
of the state government? Such an auditor would be 
like a bookkeeper that Si Farber, who used to run a 
mill up in Louisiana, had for awhile. He would take 
money out of the safe and not charge himself with it, 
but it wasn't long until Si found out what was going 
on. and he roared out one day: 

" 'See here, why don't you charge yourself up with 
that money, in the books?' 

"'Why,* Mr. Farber,' said he, 'these books are to 
show the condition of your business, and not mine.' 

"Si Farber was a man who could always tell a 
miller by the inside of his hands when it w T as in 
the clays of buhr mills, and no counterfeit could ever 
get a job with him. 'No matter how slick a feller 
can talk about milling,' he used to say, 'if the inside 
of his hands don't show the marks, he's a fraud.' 
Begod he was right, and that's the way to analyze 
these reports which are coming out on the installment 
plan. And Dockery can't show up the cracks in his 
hands when he says that the auditor is not under 
obligation to report the work of the fund commission- 
ers and the fiscal agent. By the way, w r ho is the 
fiscal agent of Missouri? Is it Kohn & Co.? But, 
never mind. Section 7491 of the revised statutes of 
Missouri says that the fiscal agent shall be appointed 
by the fund commissioners and that it shall be a 
part of his duty to certify both to the fund commis- 
sioners and to the auditor all the figures connected 
with the dealings of the bank, which is the fiscal 
agent, with the State of Missouri. It is, in that sec- 
tion, made mandatory upon the auditor to get from 
the fiscal agent of the state a full statement of the 
amounts of money received by the fiscal agent from 
the fund commissioners and expended for interest on 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

the debt; 'whereupon the state auditor shall credit 
the fund commissioners and charge the bank there- 
with.' 

STATE FINANCIAL REPORTS. 

"If that isn't opening an account between the 
auditor and the bank which is the fiscal agent of the 
state, you couldn't open one with a crowbar. If 
that statute can't put the auditor and the fiscal agent 
to doing business with each other, I don't know what 
could. And as to the business relations of the fund 
commissioners with the auditor, section. 7490 says 
that the fund commissioners shall draw their war- 
rant on the state auditor for every dollar of interest 
on the public debt that is to be paid out. I rather 
think the constitution and laws of Missouri have 
made it impossible for the auditor to go out of busi- 
ness with the fund commissioners and the fiscal agent, 
or with anybody else who handles the cash of the 
state. Why, lookee here, 'sposen' it's true, as Dock- 
ery says, that the auditor's reports don't cover all of 
the financial operations of the state, how long would 
it be until, in the course of human events, you would 
get an auditor and a treasurer together who would 
say: 'This is a dead easy game for us if we work 
together, for if there's anything wrong in the books 
the governor can tell the people that the books are no 
good and can't be relied on to show the condition of 
the public funds.' Say, that would be pie for the 
men on the inside, but the men who made the consti- 
tution and the laws of Missouri saw it all just as 
plainly as I see it now, or as any sensible man can 
see it when he shuts his ej^es and imagines he sees 
an auditor who is only responsible for a part of the 
si .-lie's book-keeping. 

"Who is responsible for the other part? That's a 
mighty big question right now if Dockery is going to 

250 



THE EXPERT WORK. 

stick to his point. Where are the reports of the fund 
commissioners and of the fiscal agent published? I 
guess they're published about like the reports of the 
treasurer as to the money in the vaults were pub- 
lished until this last month. You know the constitu- 
tion says that the treasurer shall make a monthly 
publication of the cash on hand in the various funds. 
For several years back they have concluded that 
writing it out on a piece of paper and sticking it up 
on a wall of a statehouse corridor would meet the 
legal view of publication. But since work was sus- 
pended so long on the Farmington asylum, after the 
appropriation was made to do it, an idea has got 
around the state that them funds were loaned out, 
and I'll be cussed if I don't think they were at that. 
They made a big hurry up to get them in, though, and 
last month the statement of the funds in the treasury 
was given out to the newspapers for the first time 
in many, many long moons. All of the Farmington 
money is accounted for. But why couldn't it have 
been done before? 

THE "DAMNED" REPUBLICANS. 

"Things like that, when a man begins to find them 
out, make him sorry that he ever voted for the party, 
but they're not a-patchin' by the side of the way he 
feels when he strikes this talk of minority respon- 
sibility, or the way the Republicans have done them 
up. Say, I don't like to belong to a party that owns 
up so often that it can be done up by other one. As 
I expected, they have got it down that all the mis- 
takes in bookkeeping occurred under Republican ad- 
ministration, and that the Republicans worked off 
several gold bricks on us when they turned over the 
books. We didn't see what we were getting, and 
didn't find out what we had got until thirty years 

251 



STATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN BOOK. 

after we had had it and been handling it, and now 
we have found it out and would give hell to the men 
who played the trick on us if they weren't all dead. 
I wonder if Kohn & Co. is dead yet. The way the 
Democratic party of this state has been imposed 
upon is something awful. Wall street knocked our 
eye out for something like $700,000, and only a little 
while before that the Republicans had turned over a 
lot of phony books to us with a job lot of dis- 
crepancies in them, and figures that can't be made 
to balance, and we took 'em and give the Repub- 
licans a clear receipt. 

"And they're after us yet. Sam Cook says it was 
the Republican minority that run that bad legislature 
in 1899, in which so much mischief was done, and in 
which the lobby was so powerful. It has been 
charged by two of the Democratic members of that 
legislature that the Democratic state central com- 
mittee was a part of the lobby, and did most of its 
work, and as Sam was chairman of the committee 
at that time, the remark is personal to him. But, 
after all, says Sam, it's the Republican minority that 
is responsible for all the devilment done at that 
session. The Democrats elected Cockrell to the 
Senate that year. They elected Ward speaker of the 
house, and they appointed the chairman of every com- 
mittee in the house and senate, but after all that 
was done, says Sam, the Republicans come a-bilin' 
up, and run the whole shootin' match from that time 
on. If you want to end the lobby, says Sam, end the 
Republican minority. 

"I'll be darned if that ain't good advice. Make a 
swap of parties. The Democrats say thai a minority 
can run a legislature better than a majority. Well, 
then, if you Avant things done, put your party in the 
minority. Let's get in the minority and put the 

252 



THE EXPERT WORK. 

Republicans in the majority, and then we'll have 'em 
right where we want 'em. Give them the senator- 
ships and speakerships and the chairmanships, and 
we'll take the minority and make the laws. Maybe 
we can get something done that way. 

"But a good many of the old-line Democrats in 
the state, who are thoroughly inoculated with the 
old Democratic doctrine of party responsibility act- 
ing through majorities, can't catch on very easy to 
the idea of having to get in to the minority in the 
legislature to get something done. A good many 
of them are beginning to feel like Joab Watkin's 
wife, who used to live near Gaines' mill, in Laclede 
county, Joab came home one day with his nose and 
his lip split open, and both of his eyes blackened, 
and he had to own up that the thing had been done 
by a man about half his size. 

" 'Joab,' said his wife, 'I know you're an awful 
liar, but I married you because I was shore you 
could whup that feller who ain't morn'n half of you. 
Good-by.' 

"Things are coming too fast for lots of them. Sam 
Cook's story of the Republican minority running the 
Democratic majority in the legislature isn't a week 
old until this one comes out of the Republicans put- 
ting off a lot of bad book-keeping on the Missouri 
Democrats that they didn't find out for thirty years, 
and when they read this true story of mine about 
how the Missouri Bourbons were worked by a Wall 
street house, and skinned in a coon trap that cotched 
'em both coram' an' goin', they'll go out behind the 
house and ask: 'Are we as green as we look?' and 
most of them will kick themselves and answer, 'Not 
by a darned sight' " 



IINDBX. 



Page. 

Violation of the Constitution 5 

people's Money Expended Without an Ap- 
propriation 7 

Official Proof of the Foregoing 7 

Unconstitutional Appropriation of People's 

Money 12 

Evolution of the Lobby 14 

"Pay Check" Scandal 16 

Fall of Lawmakers 17 

"Sara" follows "Jim's" Example 18 

Proof of Guilt 20 

A Startling Record 21 

Way to the State Treasury Made Easy 22 

State Treasury Made a Lobby Fund 24 

More Constitution Smashing 27 

Unlimited Taxation 28 

A Man's Shave Taxed 30 

Dead Men and Undertakers Taxed 32 

Franchise Tax Fiasco 33 

Democratic "Local Self-Government" 33 

Other Fields to Invade 34 

School Fund Investment Void 36 

Pending Constitutional Amendment 39 

Bonds and Certificates of Indebtedness 40 

Allen's Review of the School Fund 41 

Democratic Platform of 1900 Lied 44 

Dockery- Allen-Expert Exhibit 48 

School Fund Assets Not Used to Cancel State 

Bonds 48 

State Debt Increased $1,132,720 Illegally.... 48 
What State Auditor's Reports should 

Contain 54 

254 



INDEX. 

Page. 

State Funds Misappropriated 57 

Interest Fund Misused 57 

State Bonded Debt Perpetuated Indefinitely. 57 

The Taxpayer's Dilemma 59 

Juggling of State Trust Funds 62 

What Auditor's Reports Show 62 

Revenue Fund Unlawfully Used 62 

Interest Fund Manipulation 65 

State's Faith Pledged 67 

Diversion of the Interest Fund 67 

Gov. Stephens Confesses Guilt 71 

Great Loss to the State 72 

Allen- Williams Case 76 

Money Taken from State Treasury by State 

Officers 76 

Ed. Butler Collects Debts from James L. 

Seibert 77 

Despotic Rule in Missouri , 80 

"Imperialism" a Democratic Policy and 

Practice 80 

Discredited Democratic Administrations 

Saved by Machines 80 

Government by State Boards 82 

Isaac W. Morton Grand Jury Report 83 

November (1900) Election Conspiracy 84 

Southern Hotel Caucus 85 

Police and Election Machines 88 

Police Campaign Contributions 90 

Jefferson Club Padded Registration Lists . . 91 

November (1900) Election Frauds 93 

Police Protect Repeaters 94 

One-Man Election Board Under the Nesbit 

Law 95 

Judges and Clerks of Election 96 

James M. Seibert as Excise Commissioner. . 98 

Hawes Police and Street Railway Strike 99 

Record of the Dockery Machines 100 

World's Fair Mayor Election 100 

Blanke Grand Jury Report 101 

Dockery Judges and Clerks Indicted 102 

Future Elections Fraudulent 102 

Grand Jury vs. Rolla Wells 104 

Even the Nesbit Law Violated 105 

Republican Election Officials Thrown Out. . . 107 

255 



INDEX. 

Page. 

Nesbit and Police LaAvs 109 

Dockery and Butler Prevented Amendment. 109 

Entire State Affected 110 

Nesbit and Police Law Amendments 112 

Democratic Caucus Bill 115 

Sam Cook for Honest Elections 116 

Planned to Steal Elections . 118 

Republicans Appeal to Washington 119 

Betrayal by Francis Republicans 121 

Non-Contestable Elections 123 

Parker- Wells Contest 124 

Governmental Policies ; 127 

Corporations and State Taxes 127 

Proposed Perpetual 3-Cent State Tax 127 

State Institution Machines 129 

Legislature Used by Lobby 130 

Dockery Machines Used Against Democrats. 132 

Infamous Cardwell Case 133 

Democratic State Committee Convicted of 

Perjury 133 

Cardwell's Attorney Talks 134 

St. Louis Republic's Denial 137 

James M. Seibert Arrested 137 

Seibert's Interest in the Stock Yards Bill 139 

Sam B. Cook's Revelations 141 

Sam Priest's "Gift" 142 

Cook and Walsh Mix 143 

"Bill" Phelps' Donation 144 

Govenor Stephens' Testimony 146 

Sam B. Cook as Lobbyist 147 

Where the Eggs Came In 152 

Phelps a Handy Man 153 

Why Stuever Paid Stephens 154 

Bradley's Eye-Opener 156 

Ed Orear Testifies 157 

Democratic State Finance Committee 158 

The "Old Politician's" Letters 159 

Eggs and Experts 161 

School Fund Loot 179 

The School Fund 195 

Bonds and Certificates 209 

The Bond Deals 224 

The Expert Work 239 

25(5 




I am Missouri 

"at run to the i. 

lands and pi 

grains. My 

uplands, 

fruits of 

/ peo 
J bar 

r y gr< 

L™of fi 

^ land 



[From Missouri State Republican.! 



take a look at me, and my mighty rivers 
ea — at my mountains and valleys, my wood- 
ims, my mineral, my timber, my live stock ai 
towns and my cities, my schools and my homes 
my lowlands, my black wax and loams; the! 
:ny orchards, the coal in my hills, the corn of 
prairies, the woof of my mills ; the thrift of my 
sle, their labor and toil, which bring forth the 
rest from bounteous soil, unto which responding' 
?at bosom yields the food for the cattle of thousands^ 
elds. No state that is richer in forest or mine, a 
of the honey, the milk and the vine ; with people God-^ 
ring as any, I trow, who live in the pride of the sweat ^ 
of the brow, and who wonder, as working the long ye 
through, why Missouri 'gains not as her sisters do- -_ 
sisters less temperate in climate than she, and lacking he 
rivers that run to the sea ; and lacking the railroads which 
came in the quest of a world-circling route from the East 

* he , West - 0h > great is their wonder that these things should 1 
and when they say, "I'm from Missouri ; show me," they mean that 
the mystery of such things has made, the man from Missouri for 
(ever afraid of the books that don't balance, discrepancies that 
mount; auditors who don't audit; experts who can't count: 
lobbies in power who make all the laws; judges in ermine who I 
indicate flaws in the state constitutions by books or bv hooks, and 
!wno quash indictments of election crooks: commissioners of 
int^ W 6 l m Z P at r im ony out; fiscal agents who never tell what 
dnnhf £h & ^° U *5 ai l d e^ies without vouchers relieving them of 
tn ™™ 2? u U T nds w } lc ^ hav6 dlsa PPeared without a restitution,leave holes, *§ 
sunk mn^l * m a J k u d *r° mend mj institution ; a sinking fund in which is 
the n m n[« ^ the £ 6b l* l ° W ?L an ^terest fund to which I've paid more than 
wf.,M-n P l™ °« * * T + h u fas te. r rhave paid it off, faster it see ms to grow. If vol 
feten£t oK™ *> 6 trU , th ? f th & don,t to m y records go. The bondsfthe price/the 
btatf™ l P ? u' my books Wl11 never show - For the party who keepsme out of my J 
lohl wW??.: t U Undel * machine dictation. The committee's in the lobby, and the 
Butif tw> e * brone and the experts hunt for balances, and all my people groan . 
Dutntheyrefrom Missouri, and really must be shown, just look at me, as I stand 
w^wl yed f r ° m ZOne to zone ; and in m y southeast corner, projection they will find 
wnicc they can use to serve or save, as they may be inclined. If ] 

teat to milk me dry, no doubt. But if I" m a man, it is a 



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